Vasari Michelangelo Analysis

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel during the High Renaissance era of art. Vasari Claimed that this work was both a true beacon of art, as well as enlightenment to painting that illuminated a world which for hundreds of years had been a state of darkness. Vasari may have been referring to the physical coloring of the majority of artworks done in the past hundred years or so since antiquity, as the a lot of artwork, including that done by Leonardo Da Vinci, was very dark in its coloration, which is not to say that there wasn’t painting done in a similar style to Michelangelo’s, but that there were many artists who did not paint with such vivid colors. The artwork done by Michelangelo may be seen as a beacon of art as it was

Michelangelo not only created a work that was huge in size, with a beautiful depiction of scenes form the bible, tying in perfectly to describe the rise and fall of mankind, he also mastered his own technique in depicting the human body, To Michelangelo “the body was beautiful not only in its natural form but also in its spiritual and philosophical significance” (Gardner’s 626). The idea of showing the pure beauty of the human form is seen both in the beauty of the art itself with its rarely seen before vivid colors, as well as the idealizing of the human form, showing it off in the most beautiful way. Michelangelo depicted the human form in the most basic way possible, either nude or simply clothed, to display how the human body is quite beautiful even without garments of any kind. It was said that Michelangelo never said himself to be a painter, but rather a sculptor, and this is seen in his amazing way of painting the human figure, with a sculptor’s eye, where humans seem to be very similar to a statue, with extreme attention to the detail in how light and shadow display