Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [26]
Michelangelo owed his training to Lorenzo de‘Medici, but Lorenzo’s insensitive son ordered the maestro to sculpt a statue out of snow in the palazzo courtyard. Years later, Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII (the sculptor worked for seven of the thirteen popes who reigned during his lifetime) hired Michelangelo to drop other work and sculpt tomb statues for their relatives. When the stone faces of the deceased bore no resemblance to actual appearance, Michelangelo would brook no interference with his ideal concept, saying that, in 100 years, no one would care what his actual subjects looked like. Unfortunately, the works remain unfinished, for his fickle patrons constantly changed their minds, abruptly cancelling, without explanation and often without pay, projects Michelangelo worked on for years.
Michelangelo’s worst taskmaster was Pope Julius II, the “warrior-pope” who was bent on restoring the temporal power of the papacy. Julius had grandiose designs for his own tomb, which he envisioned as the centerpiece of a rebuilt St. Peter’s Cathedral. He first commissioned Michelangelo to create forty life-size marble statues to decorate a mammoth two-story structure. The project tormented Michelangelo for forty years as Julius and his relatives gradually whittled down the design and interrupted his progress with distracting assignments. When referring to the commission, Michelangelo darkly called it the “Tragedy of the Tomb.”
Michelangelo, “Pietà,” 1498/99-1500, St. Peter’s, Rome. Michelangelo’s first masterpiece groups Christ and the Virgin in a pyramidal composition.
THE SCULPTOR. Of all artists, Michelangelo felt the sculptor was most godlike. God created life from clay, and the sculptor unlocked beauty from stone. He described his technique as “liberating the figure from the marble that imprisons it.” While other sculptors added pieces of marble to disguise their mistakes, Michelangelo always carved his sculptures from one block. “You could roll them down a mountain and no piece would come off,” said a fellow sculptor.
The first work to earn him renown, carved when Michelangelo was 23, was the “Pietà,” which means “pity.” The pyramidal arrangement derived from Leonardo, with the classic composure of the Virgin’s face reflecting the calm, idealized expressions of Greek sculpture. The accurate anatomy of Christ’s body is due to Michelangelo’s dissection of corpses. When first unveiled, a viewer attributed the work to a more experienced sculptor, unable to believe a young unknown could accomplish such a triumph. When Michelangelo heard, he carved his name on a ribbon across the Virgin’s breast, the only work he ever signed.
THE PAINTER: THE SISTINE CHAPEL. A few vines on a blue background — that’s all Pope Julius II asked for, to spruce up the barnlike ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. What the artist gave him was more than 340 human figures (10’ to 18’ tall) representing the origin and fall of man — the most ambitious artistic undertaking of the whole Renaissance. The fact that Michelangelo accomplished such a feat in less than four years, virtually without assistance, was a testimonial to his single-mindedness.
Physical conditions alone presented a formidable challenge. Nearly one-half the length of a football field, the ceiling presented 10,000 square feet to be designed, sketched, plastered, and painted. The roof leaked, which