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 MICHELANGELO,
the son of Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, of an honourable, if not
noble, family of Florence, was born near Arezzo on March 6, 1475.
He was apprenticed at the age of thirteen (in 1488) to the painter
D. Ghirlandajo, but he showed a genius for sculpture, and works
of his hand in both arts still exist, executed when he was quite
a lad. At the age of fourteen he attracted the attention of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, and was admitted to study in the Academy of
Ancient Art which Lorenzo had founded in the Medici Palace. Here
Michelangelo developed his genius as a sculptor, and it was here
that his rival, Torregiano, struck him with a mallet, crushing
the nose on his face, which disfigured him for life. During the
whole of this period, Michelangelo studied anatomy with passion,
and practiced the art of sculpture.
His great contest with Leonardo
da Vinci in designs for the council chamber of Florence belongs
to the years 1504-6. In the latter year, Michelangelo first came
before the world as a great painter. His Cartoon of the Pisan
War, partly preserved to us by the engravings of Marco Antonio,
produced an immense sensation on all who studied it, particularly
on Raphael, and was styled by Cellini "the School of the
World." It was, however, not so much a picture as a sensational
academic study of limbs, and if regarded as an object of imitation
its effects could not have been other than disastrous. The same
thing, so far as we can judge, may be said of Leonardo's cartoon.
In 1506 Michelangelo was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II
to undertake his vast mausoleum. On this enormous work Michelangelo
was engaged for a large part of his life, the only result being
his Moses and some unfinished statues. In 1508, Julius
compelled Michelangelo to undertake the fresco decoration of
the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling of which is a vault 150 feet
in length by 50 feet in breadth. This gigantic work, executed
entirely by the master's own hand in about 4 or 5 years, is unquestionably
the most stupendous single achievement of modern art. Inscrutable,
terrible, profound, in parts of exquisite beauty, this vast creation
of a single mighty genius has been for centuries the wonder of
mankind, in spite of the limitations imposed on the artist by
the conditions, and of his own over-strenuous mannerism. These
frescoes are the work more of a sculptor than of a painter, and
are not merely works of art, but poems which are worthy of Dante.
On the death of Julius II, Michelangelo returned to work as
a sculptor, and in 1524 he began the sublime Medici Chapel at
Florence, which, with its six colossal statues, is entirely the
work of his hand. These are the grandest works of modern sculpture.
In 1527 he was employed as engineer in defending the republic
against the Medici Princes. In 1534, Michelangelo was summoned
to complete the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel with his Last
Judgment. This enormous work is rather the tour de force
of a consummate draftsman than a picture, though it contains
some of the most original conceptions of the mighty master. It
was exhibited in 1541. These, with the frescoes in the Pauline
Chapel, are the last works of paintings that he undertook. Michelangelo
was employed as architect of St. Peter's at Rome, and continued
till his death to labour on its construction. The cupola is entirely
his work; and, had his plan of a Greek (i.e. equilateral)
cross been adhered to, the faults of the great temple would have
been avoided. He continued to labour till the last, making an
allegorical sketch of an old man, with the words ancora impara
("still learning"), and died at Rome, 1564, in his
89th year. He was buried with great pomp in Santa Croce, at Florence.
Michelangelo, the greatest genius in art of modern ages, was
more sculptor and architect than painter. As a man he was haughty,
inflexible, independent, frugal, high-minded, generous, pure,
and true. He was eminent as a poet, and his sonnets would place
him in the foremost rank of the lyrical poets of his age. No
painter has infused poetry into his productions in so definite
a way and of so high an order. He has been well called the "Dante
of art." He was never married, but his love for Vittoria
Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, 1534-1547, is one of the most
famous of soul-unions in history, and has called out from him
some exquisite poetry. Endless are the anecdotes recorded of
his caustic wit, the proud reserve, and the pathetic earnestness
of the master's spirit. In nobility of character, in sublimity
of imagination, and in stupendous achievements, Michelangelo
may rank with the greatest sons of Humanity.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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