home-Outerwear-The original culture of Italy: population, language, religion, architecture, art, traditions, music. The youthfully beautiful body of the dead Christ with dejected helplessness, but blissfully stretched out on the lap of his mother, who carefully supports him

The original culture of Italy: population, language, religion, architecture, art, traditions, music. The youthfully beautiful body of the dead Christ with dejected helplessness, but blissfully stretched out on the lap of his mother, who carefully supports him

, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Titian - contributed to world art invaluable contribution. Among these artists it is Michelangelo created titanic, heroic, courageous images both in form and content, in inner spiritual strength.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

“Michelangelo’s merit lies in how much passion and impulse, how much storm, pain and strength he put into his works. He gave art unprecedented dynamism and learned to depict what is actually impossible to depict - combustion human soul, and in general everything that is invisible and intangible.”

Priest Georgy Chistyakov. engulfed in fire

It was no coincidence that I called my presentation dedicated to the work of Michelangelo “Titan”. When we mention the name Leonardo da Vinci, we first of all remember his intellectual abilities. Raphael's name is associated with harmony. Michelangelo Buonarroti amazes, first of all, with the power of his creations. The beauty and strength of man delighted the artist and aroused the desire to embody this beauty and power in images, both sculptural and pictorial.

Beauty, strength, power, energy

Strength and power are distinguished even by Michelangelo’s female images. Look at his Madonnas, his Sibyls Sistine Chapel, on the figures “Morning” and “Night” from the Medici Chapel. Compare them with female images Leonardo and Raphael. What can we say about male images! These are titans! Titans are not only external. The artist was able to express in these creations the strength of spirit, energy that can change the world. Michelangelo lived a very long life, having outlived his great compatriots Leonardo and Raphael, several popes with whom relations did not always work out. He was often forced to obey the Pope and do things that were not what his soul required. The world was changing around him, the Baroque era was approaching. And in Michelangelo’s work features appear that are not characteristic of classical art. The storm that raged in the soul of this titan finds expression in his titanic images.

In my presentation I focused on figurative series. It will help the teacher illustrate the story of Michelangelo. For those who would like to learn more about the life and work of this titan, I recommend a list of books.

  • Argan J.K. Story Italian art. – M.: OJSC Publishing House “Raduga”, 2000
  • Beckett V. History of painting. – M.: Astrel Publishing House LLC: AST Publishing House LLC, 2003
  • Vasari D. Lives of famous painters, sculptors and architects.– K.: Art, 1970
  • Great artists. Volume 38. Michelangelo. – M.: Publishing house “Direct-Media”, 2010
  • Whipper B.R. Italian Renaissance 13th – 16th centuries. – M.: Art, 1977
  • Volkova Paola Dmitrievna. Bridge over the Abyss/Paola Volkova.– M.: Zebra E, 2013
  • Julian Freeman. History of art.– M.: Publishing house "AST" Publishing house "Astrel", 2003
  • Emokhonova L.G. World Art. M.: Publishing center "Academy", 1998
  • Clients A. Michelangelo.– Moscow White City, 2003
  • Cristofanelli Rolando. Diary of Michelangelo the Furious.– M.: "Rainbow", 1985
  • Kushnerovskaya G.S. Titanium. (Michelangelo. Composition)– M.: “Young Guard”, 1973
  • Makhov A. Michelangelo. Fourteen sketches for the fresco “The Last Judgment”.– Moscow “Ladder”, 1995
  • Michelangelo. Series “World of Masterpieces. 100 world names in art."– M.: Publishing center "Classics", 2002
  • Poetry of Michelangelo. Translation by A.M. Efros– M.: “Iskusstvo”, 1992
  • Rolland R. Lives of great people.– M.: Izvestia, 1992
  • Samin D.K. One Hundred Great Artists. – M.: Veche, 2004
  • One Hundred Great Sculptors/Auth.-comp. S. A. Mussky.– M.: Veche, 2002
  • Stone I. Torment and joy.– M.: Pravda, 1991

4 - Contribution to art of Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is the most powerful artistic personality the earth has ever bore. Never, neither before nor after him, has any artist exerted such a predominant and lasting influence on his contemporaries and posterity; and although he, as a model, turned out to be fatal for the next generation, for whom the language of his forms was not, as for himself, an internal necessity, nevertheless, thanks to this, his own greatness comes to the fore all the more victoriously. His poetic works, which have no place here, allow us to penetrate deeply into the struggle of his passionate, demanding love, lonely soul with himself, with his God and with the ideals of his art.

As an architect, Michelangelo became the founder of all the grandiose, unique quirks of the Baroque style. As a sculptor and painter, he was such an exceptional depicter of man during the Renaissance, like no one else, but ordinary people, which he took for his paintings and statues, even with their inherent properties, imperceptibly in his hands turned into supermen and demigods. Powerful forms of the body and powerful movements, externally caused by the bold opposition of lines, and internally embraced by almost worldly or even entirely worldly aspirations, stemmed from his most intimate experiences. After Phidias, no artist was able to achieve the sublime as much as Michelangelo.

As an aspiring painter, Michelangelo, in the thirteenth year of his life, entered the apprenticeship of Domenico Ghirlandaio, as an aspiring sculptor a year later, and not earlier than 1488 (as Frey showed) - to a certain Bertoldo, then caretaker of the Medicean collection of antiquities at San Marco, a student Donatello, late in his life. Further development young Buonarroti as a painter was performed before frescoes by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel, and in the sculptor - on the mentioned antiques of the Medici Garden. From that time on, he wanted to be looked at exclusively as a sculptor. But fate still led him to painting again. His most significant sculptural enterprises have reached us only partially completed, while in painting, imbued with his plastic spirit, he left the greatest works united by a common connection. He developed into an architect, although in distant dependence on Bramante and Giuliano da Sangallo, but essentially independently, thanks to the tasks that presented themselves to him.

His earliest sculptures show the claws of a lion. The marble flat relief "Madonna of the Staircase" in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence recalls the still later style of Donatello's school, but the powerful forms of the main group and the children playing on the front staircase are sharply removed from this school. Higher marble relief"Battle of the Centaurs" from the same collection, depicting a fierce battle between the strong and slim people and centaurs, whose bodies and movements are reproduced with a perfect understanding of the matter, reveals the direct influence of the reliefs of ancient sarcophagi.

In 1494, Michelangelo lived in Bologna and here he painted an angel with a candelabra on the sarcophagus of St. Dominic in San Domenico, then the figure of Bishop Petronius, as well as the recently re-exhibited group of the half-naked horseman Proculus. This group, more clearly than previous works, reveals the bold language of forms characteristic of the young master, still influenced by the Bolognese works of Jacopo della Querci. That Proculus is a work of Michelangelo, Justi also insists on this, contrary to Frey. Makovsky showed that the model for the angel was the ancient goddess of victory preserved in the Louvre. Returning to Florence, he executed in marble young John and sleeping Cupid, which was sold at the same time for antiques. It is still difficult to recognize the first in “Giovannino” along with Bode and Karl Justi. Berlin Museum, and the second together with Conrad Lange and Fabrizi in one piece of the Turin collection. However, Michelangelo's nude marble Bacchus in the National Museum in Florence, the first work he executed in 1496 in Rome, remains completely reliable. The ancient and the modern, characteristic of the master, are inseparably united in this swaying figure, whose naked body is conveyed with such vital warmth.

In the marble group of the suffering Mother of God with the deceased Savior in her bosom, distinguished by such inner grandeur and now decorating the Church of St. Peter, Michelangelo embraced with his personal view of nature and the life of his heart everything that he owed to the school of Donatello in Florence, the works of Querci in Bologna and ancient sculpture in Florence and Rome.

This noble creation is still slightly surrounded by the severity of the 15th century, but is already completely imbued with the aspirations characteristic of Michelangelo. Returning to Florence a second time, the master in 1501 received an order from the city to carve a statue of young David from a colossal marble block left by one of his predecessors in the form of a fragment. This naked colossus of a youth, aiming with a sling, guarded the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio from 1504 to 1873, and now stands imprisoned in the rotunda of the academy. The figure of the brave youth is executed with an amazing sense of nature, all individual parts, such as arms and legs, are executed with extreme care, and the magnificent head is animated by an angry expression. The restraint of movements is only partly explained by the narrowness of this block; Michelangelo managed to extract strong, strong, true to life and original forms from this random stump.

After these majestic and austere works, the beautiful marble group of the Madonna with a naked boy standing between her knees in the Church of the Virgin Mary in Bruges and the graceful round relief with the Madonna and two boys in the National Museum in Florence show a calmly balanced and full of beauty style XVI century in the plastic works of Michelangelo.

But then the first big painting task fell to his lot. In 1504, his hometown gave him the execution of a battle painting from Florentine history on the wall of the city council hall, located opposite the begun painting by Leonardo. Michelangelo chose an unexpected attack on bathing soldiers at the Battle of Cascina. He had no intention of feigning the confusion of battle. He clearly sought to represent in the noblest images every person, every group and to convey the variety, naturalness and excitement of movements. All these strong people are animated by only one feeling of fear of approaching danger, one desire to escape. Michelangelo's work on cardboard was interrupted in 1505 by his call to Rome, but even in its unfinished form it became a school for the whole world. Better idea about separate groups This vanished work is given to us by copper engravings by Mark Antony and Agostino Veneziano.

A lovely relief of the Madonna at the Academy of Arts in London and round picture in the Uffizi, this, perhaps the only handmade easel painting by Michelangelo, already suggests the presence of cardboard with bathing soldiers. The Madonna sits on her knees in front of Joseph and stretches her arms back to receive the baby from him over her right shoulder, and her strong members are shown by placing them in downsides; the same should be noted regarding the unfinished marble statue Apostle Matthew of the Florentine Academy, depicted in a bold, sharp turn. The victory of a line over a stationary mass means in in this case the victory of the spirit over the body, and already here begins Michelangelo’s style in conveying movement, which captivated the whole world.

Michelangelo is one of the most unique masters in the history of the plastic arts. Individual talent, combined with favorable conditions of the era, led Michelangelo to artistic achievements so large-scale and multifaceted that it is difficult to find analogues in the entire history of the plastic arts.

The time in which Michelangelo lived and worked was one of the peaks of the spiritual evolution of mankind. Perhaps no other country during a single historical era didn't give the world so much outstanding masters like Italy during the Renaissance. Over the course of three centuries, the colossal artistic potential of the Renaissance took shape - a time saturated to the limit with the spirit of intense creative creation.

When assessing the individual stages that make up the history of Renaissance culture, it would be wrong to assert the unconditional predominance of one of them over the other. Equally unfair would be the judgment that each new generation of masters of that era must necessarily surpass their predecessors. Are we talking about the period? early renaissance associated with the name Giotto, or about art High Renaissance(XV century), which was represented by Bruneddeschi. Donatello, Alberti, Piero della Francesca, Maptegna, Botticelli and Giovanni Bellini, or, finally, about the late Renaissance - about the time of Palladio, Veronese and Tintoretto, we will have to note that at all successive stages of the evolution of Renaissance art, artistic values which are still of great importance today.

But still, the artistic contribution that such masters as Michelangelo, Bramante, Leonardo, Raphael, Giorgione and Titian made during the Renaissance is invaluable. These artists were given a special fate. For, in addition to the unique qualities of each of the Renaissance stages separately, the general dynamics of the progressive development of the entire era as a whole means a lot. This dynamic has its own meaning and its own historical pathos. The line of this development is diverse, and in its movement in time, along with various kinds of individual fluctuations, it records more significant regularities! and growth and descent. The chronological period (1490-1530) was therefore called the era of the High Renaissance.

A new round in the development of society has set new challenges for art - renewal artistic language both in poetry and in painting. The revival, so to speak, “chose” to fine arts, where artistic images were far superior in expressiveness to literature, music and science.

The creative and life path of Michelangelo occupies almost ninety years of Italian history. The creativity of the great master is not limited to High Renaissance. Within this period, only the first half of it passed creative path. Unlike the vast majority of other masters of this stage, whose activities were limited to precisely this period of time, Michelangelo retained all the completeness creative activity and in the next, final phase of the era during the Late Renaissance. From this it can be seen that Michelangelo’s work covers two major stages, each of which is marked by a range of ideas and images in different directions, with its own special means of artistic language.

One more important point should be noted - throughout his life, which captured both stages of Renaissance art, Michelangelo was always at the forefront of the artistic process, leading the search for a new artistic language, defining the main line of the era with his creativity. What is the burning reason for this circumstance, which so noticeably distinguished Michelangelo from other great masters of the 16th century? ^Two interrelated factors played a role here; first of all - the specific features of his artistic worldview and creative method, and then - the all-round talent that allowed Michelangelo to express himself with such extraordinary energy in all types of plastic arts.

First, let's talk about the first of these factors. As you know, the art of the Renaissance marked the discovery real person and the real world around him. For Italian Renaissance This formula has always been characterized by the predominance of the human image over its environment - a kind of anthropocentrism of the creative worldview. Michelangelo embodies titanism, generated by the confrontation between secular views and the “divine” principle; subsequently, such confrontation is rewarded, and the person exalts himself, freeing himself from the dogmas of the incomprehensibility of the world that fettered his will. For Michelangelo, there is no world outside of man - the human image embraces and exhausts everything. As for showing the real environment of a person, the master is not interested in it, or almost not. In man and only in him, in. in his appearance, his inner world, in his feelings and actions, he discovers inexhaustible possibilities for revealing all that exists.

The Renaissance ideal of a person - strong, self-confident, in which physical beauty was combined with the energy of passions and the power of the mind. - was embodied in its various aspects by many of Michelangelo’s predecessors and contemporaries. Michelangelo does not look for his heroes in the world of ideas, does not strive for abstract perfection, does not turn to divine transcendence. He it to a greater extent than other masters, he also highlights the core of human character: the heroic principle, understood primarily as a person’s ability to take active action, to overcome all the obstacles that stand in his way. A man from Michelangelo's creations is captured at the decisive moments of his life, at moments when his fate is determined and when personal valor elevates his deed to the level of feat. This great master managed to find what makes one most strongly feel the beating of a person’s heart, his flesh and blood, and understand his feelings and experiences.

“Today’s painters paint according to a stereotypical pattern,” Michelangelo writes in his diaries. “There is no glimpse of any innovation in their works. Yes, they are not trying to bring anything new to art. Everyone now has before their eyes thousands of examples of ready-made solutions left over from the heyday of Tuscan art. It’s much calmer to paint figures than to put yourself at risk by introducing movement into the frozen composition of the same Girlan Dayo or Rogsgllm.”

Therefore, Michelangelo's characters appear before us in the highest tension of strength - in moments of gloomy thoughtfulness, affirmation of their victory, or in their pain and torment, or in heroic death. That is why they are so impressively tragic when an insoluble conflict settles within them, manifesting itself in the consciousness of the incompatibility of what should be and what is possible, when their former self-confidence collapses and a growing feeling of powerlessness in the face of the ineradicable EVIL OF LIFE.

Michelalgedo is an all-rounder. Statue and fresco, drawing and architectural structure- everything that he created is saturated with plastic energy and the richness of artistic language. As we know, versatile talent in itself is not an exception, but rather a typical side of the Renaissance masters, many of whom successfully tested their strengths in different areas artistic activity. However, only one Michelaigelo managed to make a truly epoch-making contribution to all sections of the plastic arts, regardless of whether it was sculpture or painting, graphics or architecture. In any case, we can say without hesitation that in each of the named sections, Michelangelo’s works can rightfully be regarded as achievements of a decisive order.

Michelangelo is an artist and sculptor, he welds elements of architecture and painting (the Sistine Chapel) into a form of synthetic integrity that has not been achieved by any other Renaissance master. Thus, the striking unity of the initial factors of Michelangelo’s creative method results in a rare variety of final artistic results.

The strength of personality and the truly titanic scale of Michelangelo’s deeds served as a guarantee of the insurmountable greatness of his spirit in the most difficult trials of the Burden. More than anyone else Italian master XVI century Michelangelo's biography is presented as the spiritual path of a man who was a participant in the main events of the era, which found a deep response in his consciousness and work.

Michelangelo began his career as an artist as a thirteen-year-old boy. After a one-year stay (1489) in the workshop of the outstanding Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, he moved to the school of sculpture created under the auspices of Lorsipo Medici in the Medici Gardens at the Florentine monastery of San Marco. In this school, led by Bertoldo, Michelangelo immediately attracted attention and was soon accepted into the cultural circles of Florence and accepted on an equal footing by the outstanding figures of that time - Polnziano, Marsilio Ficno, Pica della Mirandola. Michelangelo chose sculpture, drawing him fine arts in skill and strength will be equally great in this art form. Already in Michelangelo's early sculptural works, experts discover the true scale of his talent. There is essentially nothing studentlike in the small relief compositions “Madonna of the Stairs” and “Battle of the Centaurs” created by a sixteen-year-old boy. It's not enough to say that they demonstrate bold and confident artistry - they are clearly ahead of their time.

The first of these works, executed back in the 15th century, traditional for Italian sculptors. the technique of flat, subtly nuanced relief will give R TO the same time an example of a completely non-traditional image: Madonna and Young Chrpstos are endowed with power and internal drama unusual for Quattrocento art. In "Battle of the Centaurs" the relief gives the impression of truly explosive power. In a tangle of bodies. intertwined in mortal combat, the main theme of Michelangelo’s work is already visible - the theme of struggle, understood as one of the eternal manifestations of existence.

Behind the bold breakthrough into the future in the work of Michelangelo, there is a process of slow and consistent formation, in-depth study of ancient and Renaissance art, trying oneself in various, sometimes very contradictory traditions,

Along with his studies in sculpture, Michelangelo did not stop studying painting, mainly monumental; independent motifs appeared in his graphics. But the period of apprenticeship for Michelangelo is so fleeting that it almost does not exist: he knows for certain what he depicts, while showing literacy and deep competence.

An important step in the creative formation of Mnke-langelo was his stay in Rome from 1496 to 1501. Going beyond the Florentine artistic environment and closer contact with the ancient tradition contributed to broadening the young master’s horizons and enlarging the scale of his artistic thinking. True, the earliest Roman work - the statue of Bacchus - is an example of a not yet very deep implementation of ancient impulses. Although, as Michelangelo himself wrote, he did not strive to follow Greek traditions: “I will try to properly pump him up with wine, and this will be the main difference from the Greek models... When the sculpture is finished, let it become clear to everyone that Bacchus had enough , and his intoxicated state will be expressed on his face and in his movements. For the Greeks, this is just an allegory of enjoying the aroma of ripe grapes, and I have the right to call my work Tipsy Bacchus.”

The main work of these years is the Pieta (Lamentation of Christ) in the Roman Cathedral of St. Peter, commissioned by the Abbot of Saint-Deca, the French envoy to the Vatican. This is the first serious job Michelangelo-master, but at the same time a work that aroused many personal doubts and brought him dissatisfaction with himself: “The French prelate and his entourage like the work more and more, which worries and upsets me somewhat. I admit that, in my opinion , .I never managed to express the NICHR-th in the “Pieta”. The sculptural composition is too timid and smooth to represent anything new.” It should be noted that in this work Michelangelo “restrains himself”, tries to follow the requirements of the customer, but at the same time he depicts Mary as young, while she is infinitely far from the conventional beauty and emotional immobility of Gothic Madonnas of this type. Her feeling is a living human experience, embodied with such depth and richness of shades that here for the first time we can talk about introducing a psychological element into the image. Behind the young mother's external restraint one can discern the depth of her grief. Even the group’s difficult compositional motif - a seated virgin holding the body of her son in her lap - seems logical and natural here. After completing the Roman Pietà, Michelangelo created the Madonna and Child, a small (1.28 m high) sculptural group, which later ended up in the Notre Dame Church in the Dutch city of Bruges. This work opens a line of images in the work of Mnkelgshzhedo, marked by the features of a peculiar lyricism; Particularly attractive is the Madonna herself, in whom classical beauty and inner strength of personality are combined with soft poetry.

At the same time, Michelangelo begins: work on statues of saints for the Piccolomini altar in the Siena Cathedral. The background for the statues is formed by a multi-part architectural composition of panels and niches in several tiers around the main arched niche of the altar (architect Andrei Breno). Being limited in his capabilities by the alien style of the general design of the altar, very closely related to the spirit of the Quattrocento, Michelangelo created four statues, monotonous in type, far from his characteristic plastic manner. To some extent, the figure of the Apostle Paul, who is more lively and energetic in terms of movement, can be considered an exception among them.

In 1501, Michelangelo returned to Florence and received a responsible order from the Florentine Signoria (republican self-government): to sculpt a statue of David from a huge marble block, damaged by one unlucky sculptor. In 1504 the work was completed. This work solidifies Michelangelo's title as the first sculptor of Italy.

The unusual dimensions of “David”, its gigantism (height 4.54 m) are an indicator of the real strength of the hero, because it is not without reason that this work was intended to embody the image of the mighty defender of Republican Florence. Michelangelo continued here the line of psychological interpretation begun in the Roman “Pieta,” but the psychologism of “David” is of a special, enlarged order, according to the scale and nature of this image. In the beautiful face of the young hero, in his gaze with which he meets the enemy, one can capture that formidable expressiveness that contemporaries considered an integral property of Michelangelo’s creations. The sculptor himself wrote: “David is the embodiment of my aesthetic and political impulses, all my passions... I conveyed all my feelings and aspirations to David, which only I know... He is different from his predecessors and no longer looks like an effeminate youth devoid of muscles. I overturned the traditional idea of ​​David." Without resorting to strong compositional dynamics or complex movement, the master created a type of hero full of courage, power and readiness for action.

Around the same time, Michelangelo received another order - to paint one of the walls of the Great Council Hall of the Palace of the Signoria with frescoes. Mixangelo's fresco composition "The Battle of Cascina" was supposed to be paired with Leonardo da Vinci's fresco - "The Battle of Anghiari" on the opposite wall of the hall. Michelangelo only managed to complete sketches on cardboard for the frescoes. The urgent departure of the master from Rome prevented work on the painting. The cardboard has not survived to this day, but an old copy, drawings and engravings allow us to conclude that in the evolution of Michelangelo’s painting this work turned out to be just as important milestone, like "DaBid" in his sculpture. What was depicted here was not the battle itself, but the minutes preceding it, when the Florentine soldiers bathing and the Arno River were immediately raised by a combat alarm, they climbed ashore, donned armor and took up arms to meet the enemy,

The cutman motif allowed Michelangelo to present his characters naked and embody the heroic beginning of the IR in the most vicissitudes and expressive body language. The artist convincingly showed how the impulse to action - the alarm signal - directly turns into the action itself, in which a person acts in the indestructible integrity of his nature and readiness to fight.

R 1505, at the invitation of Pope Julius and Michelangelo moves to Rome. He was entrusted with the creation of the papal tomb. The project developed by the master was grandiose: it provided for the construction of a monumental mausoleum, including forty sculptures and bronze bas-reliefs, which Michelangelo intended to complete with his own hands. This plan, however, was not destined to come true. Julius II lost interest in his undertaking and insulted Michelangelo, after which the master left Rome without permission and returned to Florence.

In 1508, having returned to Rome after reconciliation with Julius II, Michelangelo began work on one of his most striking and main works - the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In this work, Michelangelo managed to fulfill his cherished dream: to create the grandest fresco cycle that has ever existed in the world. Colossal fresco with a total area of ​​over six hundred square meters(completed by Michelangelo in twenty-six months of work during 1508 - 1512) did not have even remote prototypes in the previous painting of the Italian Renaissance, either in its ideological program or in terms of the system of monumental painting itself. The Sistine Chapel is a vast room 34 m long, 12 m wide and 18 m high. Based on the actual configuration of the chapel vault, Michelangelo continued and developed its architecture by means of painting, highlighting along its longitudinal axis the middle, flattest part (the so-called mirror) and placing in it episodes of biblical references about the days of creation and the life of the first people on earth. The corner triangular sails are occupied by very large compositions based on scenes from other parts of the Bible. In the spaces between the windows, the artist placed the figures of twelve prophets and sibyls (soothsayers), and in the triangular formworks and semicircular lunettes formed behind the windows - images of the ancestors of Christ. These main images appear surrounded by many figures of an auxiliary order - ideally beautiful young slaves (in the corners of biblical scenes in the middle part of the vault), small Atlanteans (on the sides of the prophets and sibyls), interpreted in sculptural forms, and various other images.

“There are a lot of subjects that interest me, and I’m afraid that I won’t have enough space allotted for painting.,. It feels as if the scenes that have already been written are growing, filling the entire vault one by one..., and my imagination continues to generate more and more new scenes and images.. > The result is a sooty multi-part system, each component of which, while being perceived as an independent element, at the same time enters as an integral part into the overall whole. In this structure, Michelangelo was able to accommodate a kind of universal history of existence, captured in narrative compositions, from the initial cosmogonic shifts and the first acts of creation to the tragic catastrophes that befell the human race and individual events that were important in its fate. The painting also includes whole line individual images that embody different facets of human types and characters and moments of their active manifestation. But the main impression from the painting is the feeling of heroic strength that it radiates, a force that is not overwhelming, but elevates a person, forcing him to see his true scale,

Color plays a huge role in painting. First of all, this relates to the unusually successfully found general range of solid, close-up tones, in which the juxtaposition of the light background of architectural motifs with the tones of a naked body and strong-sounding spots of clothes - energetic strokes of blue, ocher-yellow, grassy green and different shades of red. A truly stunning coloristic impression is made by " Copper serpent"in the corner sail near the altar wall, in which shades of gray-green and olive acquired an unexpectedly sinister sound, enhancing the tragic intent of this composition.

The Sistine ceiling became a comprehensive embodiment of the High Renaissance - its harmonious beginning and its conflicts, ideal human types and bright characters merging with this ideal basis. Certain parts of the painting (“Copper Serpent”) foreshadow moments of crisis in the near future - this is the apotheosis of the Renaissance spirit at the time of its highest rise. In Michelangelo's subsequent works we will have to observe the process of a steady increase in the contradictions of the time, the awareness of the impracticability of Renaissance ideals, and subsequently their tragic collapse.

Since 1512, after the death of Yulil P, Michelangelo resumed work on his tomb according to a new project. However, this time the work of the great master was interrupted; he only managed to create three statues - two “Prisoners” and “Moses”, which are among the most famous creations of Michelangelo. In "Prisoners" the dramatic phase of the High Renaissance is already clearly visible in the thematic concept. In “Moses” the master returns to the image of a man of titanic proportions - the spiritual leader of the people, filled with unshakable will.

In these works, the master’s plastic style has noticeably changed: now the statue requires a semicircular walk, during which not only various plastic motifs replace each other, but also multiple variations in the emotional and dramatic concept of the image.

In 1516, Leo X, who succeeded Julius II on the papal throne, set Michelangelo an important artistic task, in solving which he had to prove himself not only as a sculptor, but also as an architect. Michelangelo was entrusted with the construction of the monumental facade of the Florentine church of San Dorenzo, built in the 15th century. Filippo Brunelleschi and was under the special patronage of the Medici family. But due to lack of funds, the project was not implemented. Only Michelangelo's sketches and the architectural model of the facade have reached us, the style of which corresponds to the classical trends in the architecture of the High Renaissance, which Bramante embodied in his work.

In parallel with this work, Michelangelo was busy executing less significant architectural commissions. including additions to the famous Florentine Palazzo Medici, built in the 15th century. Michelozzo and belonging to the most famous examples of Florentine Quattrocento architecture; the construction of a new sacristy for the same church, which was supposed to serve as a tomb for representatives of the Medici family and is called the Medici Chapel.

The construction of the chapel lasted from 1519 to 1534. During this time, Florence experienced many events: the expulsion of the Medici in 1527, the restoration of the republican system and the subsequent siege of the city by the united armies of the pope and the emperor. During the siege, Michelangelo was appointed inspector general of all fortification works.

In 1531 the city fell, the Medici again came to power, and a deep reaction reigned in Florence, as in most Italian states that found themselves dependent on Spain. The acute crisis political situation that has arisen in the country is reflected in the works of Michelangelo. It is these transitional features from one stage to another that are captured in the artistic complex of the Medici Chapel.

The Medici Chapel is a small sacristy with “royals of the Dukes Lorenzo of Urbino and Giuliano of Ngmoor along the side walls of the chapel and a statue of the Madonna and Child against the wall opposite the altar. Having moved the tombs to the walls, Michelangelo seemed to take a step towards traditional type tombstones, widespread in Italy in the 15th century. In reality, his decision turned out to be of a fundamentally different kind. Quattrocento tombstones are relatively small, self-contained compositions that are not always connected with the architecture that surrounds them. Michelangelo not only increased the scale of the tombs, but also used life-size figures in them, thereby achieving such a complete fusion of elements of architecture and sculpture that each of the tombs turns out to be an inextricable part not only of the wall to which it adjoins, but also of the entire ensemble of the chapel. Just as sculpture here is unthinkable without architecture, so architecture does not exist without sculpture, which forms the key points of the overall architectural composition.

The main thing in the artistic ensemble of the Medici Chapel is the feeling of tragic tension and painful conflict that is immediately transmitted to the viewer. It is palpable in many successively drawn contrasts: in the narrowness of the chapel’s space in width and its upward direction, in the contrast of the white marble of the walls and the languid stone in the pilasters, archivolts and window casings that separate them, in the very rhythm of the architectural forms.

We catch certain shades of the feeling that dominates the chapel in the statues of the thoughtfully detached Lorenzo and the strong, but lost readiness for action, Giuliano, in the allegorical figures on the sarcophagi, designed to embody the idea of ​​​​the transience of time - “Morning”, “Evening”, “Day” and night". “Night bowed her head to her chest, placing her foot on yoga; Day stared at me from behind his raised shoulder, as if expressing dissatisfaction with my presence; Aurora made an effort to fall back into sleep, and finally, Evening, in anticipation of the upcoming rest after work, stretched out at full height on the stone that gave birth to it, and raised his slightly worn shoulders, awaiting the onset of dusk,” - this is how Michelangelo saw the passage of time and That's how I was able to express it. All the images he created seem to be separated by a certain distance from the viewer and reside in their own special world of sorrow and tension. Only the Madonna - the key image of the chapel - appears as an image that participates in the viewer with the world of her feelings, the depth and complexity of which do not obscure their simple human appearance.

In parallel with the work on the Medici Chapel, Michelangelo was engaged in the construction of the Laurezziana Library, a famous repository of valuable manuscripts and books, part of the complex of the same Church of San Lorenzo. Here Michelangelo completely 01 seemed to use elements of sculpture. By means of architecture alone, the effect of breathtaking expressiveness was achieved in the lobby with its complex system of double columns, which, being pushed into the recesses of the wall, go around the small space in two tiers. The impression is completed by an unusual three-flight staircase with semicircular steps and very low railings. Filling with your mass most area of ​​the lobby, it collapses on the visitor like a flow of lava. Having climbed this staircase, the reader finds himself in a very elongated hall, the architecture of which is calm and clear. Everything in this room, from the capital, carved music stands with manuscripts to the pattern of the wooden ceiling and the inlaid pattern of the floor, was made according to Michelangelo’s sketches.

In 1534, Michelangelo moved from Florence (where he could not feel safe due to his participation in the heroic defense of the city) to Rome and remained there until the end of his life.

In 1533, Paul III Farnese commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel with the Last Judgment fresco. Michelangelo refuses this work for a long time, but under pressure from the head of the Vatican he gives up and gets to work. This time the master refused to divide the painted surface into separate independent parts and filled the huge wall with a single composition with many characters.

The theme of “The Last Judgment” sounds like a hymn to human pain. “In my place, any artist would depict a green flowering lawn on which heroes gathered, crowned with golden halos,” says the master. - ...I tore God’s chosen ones from the earth’s firmament, and on our land I will leave only damned sinners and demons in the flesh. It was especially important for me to show this gulf that separates one from the other. All the characters crowding around Christ are deprived of the mystical detachment characteristic of them in the works of the old masters... Before my fresco, the viewer will stop and think, for my righteous people are similar to him and are endowed with features characteristic of him. But when the fresco is finished, will the artists and writers understand it, will the true meaning of what I wanted to say reach them?..”

The personified personification of the Supreme Court is Christ - an image completely free from the signs of a conventional religious hierarchy, and filled with truly formidable power. He is depicted in the central part of the fresco, surrounded by the Mother of God and saints; his raised hand, bringing down a curse on the bearers of sin, simultaneously turns out to be the dynamic center of the composition. At the feet of Christ and the saints and righteous crowded around him are a host of bodies of sinners, between which angels scurry, “in whom there is nothing angelic left.”

Among the individual images of the fresco, the viewer's attention is drawn to the martyred saints with the attributes of their torment: St. Sebastian with arrows, St. Lawrence with the iron grate on which he was burned, and St. Bartholomew, holding a knife in one hand and in the other the skin that his torturers tore off; in the form of a distorted face on this skin Michelangelo depicted his own face. The inclusion of such an unusual and bold motif in the fresco is evidence of the acuteness of the artist’s personal attitude towards the embodied theme.

Michelangelo's last two sculptural creations are the Pieta from Padestripis in the Florence Cathedral and the Pietà Rondanini. Both works are the clearest evidence of how far Michelangelo had gone from the range of ideas and from the artistic language of his previous works. We are accustomed to Michelangelo's plastic images as the personification of an effective principle, conflict, struggle. In the later works, Michelangelo's heroes have already crossed the line of this kind of conflict. In their appearance, in the nature of their feelings and actions, traits of simple humanity were revealed. Having lost their titanic power, they were enriched with spirituality, which colors their every mental movement, every plastic nuance. It is symptomatic that we are no longer looking at individual statues, but rather sculptural groups. Michelangelo embodies in his groups the theme of mutual human community in its various aspects - from the inextricable blood closeness of mother and son to the feeling of deep spiritual solidarity that unites the companions of Christ.

In the Pietà Palestrina, which the master intended for his own tombstone (according to Vasari, the sculptor gave Nicodemus, supporting the body of Christ, his own portrait features), he set himself the task of achieving complete figurative and plastic unity in a group no longer consisting of two, and of four figures. This work had dramatic fate- Michelangelo, in a fit of sharp dissatisfaction with his work, broke up the group (it was later restored by his students). But even in an unfinished form, without a sufficiently accurately identified main visual aspect, this group has enormous influencing power. The images of all participants merge into a single whole: the overall slow pace of movement, the tragic fracture of the figure of the dead Christ, his outstretched arms enveloping loved ones as if in an embrace; There is an atmosphere of the highest spirituality in the group.

These features were revealed even more strongly in Pieta Rondanini. Here the hands of Christ are pressed to the body, and there seems to be no space between his figure and the figure of the Madonna. external communications, but the more strongly their internal connection, participation and subordination to a single all-pervading feeling is expressed. Broken outlines appeared, carrying a feeling of incorporeality, the proportions of the figures changed sharply, their silhouettes stretched out - all this is perceived as the dissolution of matter into a higher spiritual principle. This sculptural group ends artistic path Michelangelo.

Michelangelo's creative and life path took almost ninety years of Italian history: from the "Battle of the Centaurs", the prologue of Michelangelo's art and at the same time one of initial works the classical phase of the Renaissance, until the “Pieta Rondapia”, the epilogue of the artistic activity of the great master, a work where in the very nature of the worldview and the means of artistic expression the sculptor departed so far from Renaissance norms that here we can talk about his internal closeness only to the late art of Rembrandt.

Michelangelo is one of the greatest creators in the history of world culture. In his works, passions and contradictions, torment and all-encompassing love are expressed in poetic images. He loved his age as it was destined to be. His creativity and humanity, citizenship and skill merged in a high and indissoluble unity. He told the pain of his heart to all humanity

Who betrays the cause to the point of self-forgetfulness

And in zeal the stone scorches with heat,

By biting into marble, life is breathed into it.

His creations will gain immortality.

The more bitter the trials and hardships,

The cold and heat of the stone makes it worse;

Soul yourself away cleanses filth,

He burns with fire to find salvation.

Like steel, tempered in the crucible of life:

I blaze with passions without burning.

And should I be afraid of the mortal end?

My thoughts are directed towards eternity.

Flint strikes steel sparks,

I will make hearts burn with fire

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo Buonarroti (full name - Michelangelo de Francesco de Neri de Miniato del Sera and Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni, (Italian: Michelangelo di Francesci di Neri di Miniato del Sera i Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni); 1475-15 64) - Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, thinker. One of greatest masters Renaissance era.

Biography

Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 in the Tuscan town of Caprese near Arezzo, in the family of Lodovico Buonarroti, a city councilor. As a child, he was brought up in Florence, then lived for some time in the town of Settignano.

In 1488, Michelangelo's father came to terms with his son's inclinations and placed him as an apprentice in the studio of the artist Domenico Ghirlandaio. He studied there for one year. A year later, Michelangelo moved to the school of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni, which existed under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto master of Florence.

The Medici recognized Michelangelo's talent and patronized him. For some time, Michelangelo lived in the Medici Palace. After the death of the Medici in 1492, Michelangelo returned home.

In 1496, Cardinal Raphael Riario bought Michelangelo's marble "Cupid" and invited the artist to work in Rome.

Michelangelo died on February 18, 1564 in Rome. He was buried in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. Before his death, he dictated his will with all his characteristic laconicism: “I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, my property to my relatives.”

Works

The genius of Michelangelo left its mark not only on the art of the Renaissance, but also on all subsequent world culture. His activities are connected mainly with two Italian cities - Florence and Rome. By the nature of his talent, he was primarily a sculptor. This is also felt in the master’s paintings, which are unusually rich in plasticity of movements, complex poses, and distinct and powerful sculpting of volumes. In Florence, Michelangelo created an immortal example of the High Renaissance - the statue “David” (1501-1504), which became the standard image for many centuries human body, in Rome - sculptural composition“Pieta” (1498-1499), one of the first incarnations of the figure of a dead man in plastic. However, the artist was able to realize his most ambitious plans precisely in painting, where he acted as a true innovator of color and form.

Commissioned by Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512), representing biblical story from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures. In 1534-1541, in the same Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III, he performed a grandiose, dramatic fresco “The Last Judgment”. The architectural works of Michelangelo - the ensemble of the Capitol Square and the dome of the Vatican Cathedral in Rome - amaze with their beauty and grandeur.

The arts have reached such perfection in him that you will not find either among ancient or modern people over many, many years. He had such and such a perfect imagination, and the things that seemed to him in the idea were such that it was impossible to carry out such great and amazing plans with his hands, and he often abandoned his creations, moreover, he destroyed many; so, it is known that shortly before his death he burned big number drawings, sketches and cardboards created with his own hand, so that no one could see the labors he overcame, and the ways in which he tested his genius in order to show it as nothing less than perfect.

Giorgio Vasari. "Biographies are the most famous painters, sculptors and architects." T. V. M., 1971.

Notable works


* David. Marble. 1501-1504. Florence, Academy fine arts.


*David. 1501-1504

* Madonna at the stairs. Marble. OK. 1491. Florence, Buonarroti Museum.


* Battle of the centaurs. Marble. OK. 1492. Florence, Buonarroti Museum.


*Pieta. Marble. 1498-1499. Vatican, Cathedral of St. Petra.


* Madonna and Child. Marble. OK. 1501. Bruges, Notre Dame Church.

* Madonna of Taddei. Marble. OK. 1502-1504. London, Royal Academy of Arts.
* Apostle Matthew. Marble. 1506. Florence, Academy of Fine Arts.


*"Holy Family" Madonna Doni. 1503-1504. Florence, Uffizi Gallery.

*

Madonna mourning Christ


* Madonna Pitti. OK. 1504-1505. Florence, National Bargello Museum.


*Moses. OK. 1515. Rome, Church of San Pietro in Vincoli.


* Tomb of Julius II. 1542-1545. Rome, Church of San Pietro in Vincoli.


* Dying slave. Marble. OK. 1513. Paris, Louvre.



*Rebellious slave 1513-1515. Louvre


*Awakening slave. OK. 1530. Marble. Academy of Fine Arts, Florence


* Painting the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah. Vatican.


* Creation of Adam


* SISTINE CHAPEL Last Judgment


* Madonna. Florence, Medici Chapel. Marble. 1521-1534.

* Laurentian Library. 1524-1534, 1549-1559. Florence.
* Medici Chapel. 1520-1534.

* Tomb of Duke Giuliano. Medici Chapel. 1526-1533. Florence, Cathedral of San Lorenzo.


"Night"

When access to the chapel was opened, poets composed about a hundred sonnets dedicated to these four statues. The most famous lines of Giovanni Strozzi dedicated to “Night”

This is the night that sleeps so peacefully,
Before you is the creation of an Angel,
She is made of stone, but there is breath in her,
Just wake her up and she'll talk.

Michelangelo responded to this madrigal with a quatrain that became no less famous than the statue itself:

It's nice to sleep, it's nicer to be a stone,
Oh, in this age, criminal and shameful,
Not living, not feeling is an enviable lot.
Please be quiet, don't you dare wake me up. (Translation by F.I. Tyutchev)


* Tomb of Duke Giuliano de' Medici. fragment


* Tomb of Duke Lorenzo. Medici Chapel. 1524-1531. Florence, Cathedral of San Lorenzo.


*Brutus. After 1539. Florence, National Bargello Museum


*Christ carrying the cross


* Crouching boy. Marble. 1530-1534. Russia, St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum.

*Crouching boy 1530-34 Hermitage, St. Petersburg

*Atlant. Marble. Between 1519, ca. 1530-1534. Florence, Academy of Fine Arts.


* Pieta (Entombment) of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Marble. OK. 1547-1555. Florence, Opera del Duomo Museum.

In 2007, it was found in the Vatican archives last work Michelangelo - sketch of one of the details of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The red chalk drawing is "a detail of one of the radial columns that make up the drum of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome." It is believed that this is the last work famous artist, executed shortly before his death in 1564.

This is not the first time that Michelangelo's works have been found in archives and museums. So, in 2002, in storage National Museum design in New York, another drawing by the master was accidentally found. It was among the paintings of unknown Renaissance authors. On a sheet of paper measuring 45x25 cm, the artist depicted a menorah - a candlestick for seven candles.
Poetic creativity
Michelangelo is better known these days as the author of beautiful statues and expressive frescoes; however, few people know that the famous artist wrote equally wonderful poems. Michelangelo's poetic talent fully manifested itself only towards the end of his life. Some of the great master’s poems were set to music and gained considerable popularity during his lifetime, but his sonnets and madrigals were first published only in 1623. About 300 of Michelangelo’s poems have survived to this day.

Spiritual quest and personal life

In 1536, Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, came to Rome, where this 47-year-old widow poetess earned the deep friendship, or rather, even the passionate love of 61-year-old Michelangelo. Soon enough, “the first, natural, fiery attraction of the artist was introduced by the Marquise of Pescara with soft authority into the framework of restrained worship, which alone befitted her role as a secular nun, her grief for her husband who died from his wounds and her philosophy of an afterlife reunion with him.” Your great platonic love he dedicated several of his most ardent sonnets, created drawings for her, and spent many hours in her company. The artist painted “The Crucifixion” for her, which has come down to us in later copies. The ideas of religious renewal (see Reformation in Italy), which worried the participants in Vittoria’s circle, left a deep imprint on Michelangelo’s worldview in these years. Their reflection is seen, for example, in the fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel.

Interestingly, Vittoria is the only woman whose name is firmly associated with Michelangelo, whom most researchers tend to consider homo-, or at least bisexual. According to researchers of Michelangelo's intimate life, his ardent passion for the Marquise was the fruit of a subconscious choice, since her holy lifestyle could not pose a threat to his homosexual instincts. “He put her on a pedestal, but his love for her could hardly be called heterosexual: he called her “the man in the woman” (un uoma in una donna). His poems to her... are sometimes difficult to distinguish from the sonnets to the young man Tommaso Cavalieri; moreover, it is known that Michelangelo himself sometimes replaced the address “senior” with “signora” before releasing his poems to the people.” (In the future, his poems were once again censored by his great-nephew before publication).

Her departure to Orvieto and Viterbo in 1541 due to the revolt of her brother Ascanio Colonna against Paul III did not cause a change in her relationship with the artist, and they continued to visit each other and correspond as before. She returned to Rome in 1544.
The artist's friend and biographer Kondivi writes:
“Especially great was the love he had for the Marchioness of Pescara, falling in love with her divine spirit and receiving mad reciprocal love from her. He still keeps many of her letters, filled with the purest and sweetest feelings... He himself wrote many sonnets for her, talented and filled with sweet melancholy. Many times she left Viterbo and other places where she went for fun or to spend the summer, and came to Rome only to see Michelangelo.
And he, for his part, loved her so much that, as he told me, one thing upset him: when he came to look at her, already lifeless, he kissed only her hand, and not her forehead or face. Because of this death he for a long time remained confused and as if distraught"
Biographers of the famous artist note: “The correspondence of these two remarkable people is not only of high biographical interest, but is an excellent monument of a historical era and a rare example of a live exchange of thoughts, full of intelligence, subtle observation and irony.” Researchers write about the sonnets dedicated to Michelangelo Vittoria: “The deliberate, forced platonism of their relationship aggravated and brought to crystallization the love-philosophical structure of Michelangelo’s poetry, which largely reflected the views and poetry of the Marquise herself, who during the 1530s played the role of Michelangelo’s spiritual guide. Their poetic “correspondence” attracted the attention of their contemporaries; perhaps the most famous was sonnet 60, which became the subject of special interpretation.” Records of conversations between Vittoria and Michelangelo, unfortunately heavily processed, were preserved in the diaries of Francesco d'Holland, close to the spirituali circle.

Do I dare, my treasure,
To exist without you is torment,
Are you deaf to pleas to soften the separation?
I no longer melt my sad heart
No exclamations, no sighs, no sobs,
To show you, Madonna, the oppression of suffering
And my death is not far away;
But so that fate then my service
I couldn’t get it out of your memory, -
I leave my heart to you as a pledge.

There are truths in the sayings of old,
And here’s one: he who can, does not want;
You listened, Signor, to the fact that the lies were chirping,
And the talkers are rewarded by you;

I am your servant: my works are given
You are like a ray of sunshine, even though it defames
Your anger is all that my ardor to do reads,
And all my suffering is unnecessary.

I thought that your greatness would take over
Me to you is not an echo for the chambers,
And the blade of judgment and the weight of wrath;

But there is indifference to earthly merits
In heaven, and expect rewards from them -
What to expect from a dry tree.

***
He who created everything also created the parts -
And then I chose the best one,
So that here you can show us the miracle of your deeds,
Worthy of his high power...

***
Night

It’s sweet for me to sleep, and even more so - to be a stone,
When there is shame and crime all around;
Do not feel, do not see relief,
Shut up, friend, why wake me up?


The last sculpture of Michelangelo Buonarroti "Pieta Rondanini" 1552-1564, Milan, Castello Sforzesco


The creation of Michelangelo Buonarroti St. Peter's Basilica.

Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564) is the third great genius of the Italian Renaissance. In terms of personality scale, he approaches Leonardo. He was a sculptor, painter, architect and poet. The last thirty years of his work fall already on Late Renaissance. During this period, restlessness and anxiety, a premonition of impending troubles and upheavals, appear in his works.

Among his first creations, the statue “Boy Swinging”, which echoes the “Disco Thrower”, attracts attention. antique sculptor Mirona. In it, the master manages to clearly express the movement and passion of the young creature.

Two works - the statue of Bacchus and the Pieta group - created at the end of the 15th century, brought Michelangelo wide fame and glory. In the first, he was able to amazingly subtly convey the state of slight intoxication and unstable balance. The Pietà group depicts dead body Christ lying on the lap of the Madonna, mournfully bending over him. Both figures are fused into a single whole. The impeccable composition makes them surprisingly truthful and reliable. Departing from tradition. Michelangelo depicts the Madonna as young and beautiful. The contrast of her youth with the lifeless body of Christ further enhances the tragedy of the situation.

One of highest achievements Michelangelo appeared statue "David" which he risked sculpting from a block of marble lying unused and already damaged. The sculpture is very high - 5.5 m. However, this feature remains almost invisible. Ideal proportions, perfect plasticity, rare harmony of forms make it surprisingly natural, light and beautiful. The statue is filled with inner life, energy and strength. It is a hymn to human masculinity, beauty, grace and elegance.

Michelangelo's highest achievements also include works. created for the tomb of Pope Julius II - “Moses”, “Bound Slave”, “Dying Slave”, “Waking Slave”, “Crouching Boy”. The sculptor worked on this tomb with breaks for about 40 years, but never completed it. However then. what the sculptor managed to create is believed to be greatest masterpieces world art. According to experts, in these works Michelangelo managed to achieve the highest perfection, ideal unity and correspondence inner meaning and external form.

One of Michelangelo’s significant creations is the Medici Chapel, which he added to the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence and is decorated with sculptural tombstones. The two tombs of Dukes Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici are sarcophagi with sloping lids, on which there are two figures - “Morning” and “Evening”, “Day” and “Night”. All the figures look joyless, they express anxiety and a gloomy mood. These were precisely the feelings Michelangelo himself experienced as his Florence was captured by the Spaniards. As for the figures of the dukes themselves, when depicting them, Michelangelo did not strive for portrait resemblance. He presented them as generalized images of two types of people: the courageous and energetic Giuliano and the melancholic and thoughtful Lorenzo.

Of Michelangelo's last sculptural works, the group “Entombment”, which the artist intended for his tomb, deserves attention. Her fate turned out to be tragic: Michelangelo broke her. However, it was restored by one of his students.

In addition to sculptures, Michelangelo created beautiful works painting. The most significant of them are paintings of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

He tackled them twice. First, by order of Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, spending four years on it (1508-1512) and doing a fantastically difficult and enormous job. He had to cover more than 600 square meters with frescoes. On the huge surfaces of the ceiling, Michelangelo depicted Old Testament scenes - from the Creation of the world to the Flood, as well as scenes from everyday life - a mother playing with her children, an old man immersed in deep thought, a young man reading, etc.

For the second time (1535-1541) Michelangelo created the fresco “The Last Judgment”, placing it on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. In the center of the composition, in a halo of light, there is the figure of Christ, who raised in a menacing gesture right hand. There are many naked human figures around him. Everything depicted on the canvas is in a circular motion, which begins at the bottom.

the spruce side, where the dead are depicted rising from their graves. Above them are souls who strive upward, and above them are the righteous. Most top part the frescoes are occupied by angels. At the bottom of the right side there is a boat with Charon, who drives sinners to hell. The biblical meaning of the Last Judgment is expressed clearly and impressively.

In the last years of his life, Michelangelo was engaged in architecture. He completes the construction of the Cathedral of St. Peter, making changes to Bramante's original design.



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