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Example research essay topic: Altar Wall Saint Peter - 2,005 words

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... ed to Clement VII by the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time. After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535 scaffolding was put up in front of the altar wall. All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment, including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent humanity face to face with salvation. The Scandal Even before its official unveiling, the Judgment became the target of violent criticisms of a moral character. Vasari relates that Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican's master of Ceremonies, said that "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns. " images / biagio .

jpg images / biagio . jpg Michelangelo was not slow to take his revenge: the poor Biagio images / biagio . jpg was portrayed in hell, in the figure of Minos, "shown with a great serpent curled around his legs, among a heap of devils. " Others accused the painter of heresy. These included Pietro Aretino, who, in a famous letter, even called for the fresco's destruction, the Dominican preacher Ambrogio Politi called Catering, and Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who drew up a long statement of charges against Michelangelo in his Dialogue. But the nudity of the figures worried neither Paul III nor his successor Julius III. It was not until January 1564, and therefore about a month before Michelangelo's death, that the assembly of the Council of Trent took the decision to "amend" the fresco.

Summary images / lost soul . jpg The Last Judgement, which Michelangelo finished in 1541 was the largest fresco of the Renaissance, it depicts Judgement Day. Christ, with a clap of thunder, puts into motion the inevitable separation, with the saved ascending on the left side of the painting and the damned images / damned . jpg descending on the right into a Dantesque hell images / charon's -boat. jpg . As was his custom, Michelangelo portrayed all the figures nude, but prudish draperies were added by another artist (who was dubbed the "breeches-maker") a decade later, as the cultural climate became more conservative.

Michelangelo painted his own image in the flayed skin images / flayed . jpg of St. Bartholomew. Although he was also given another painting commission, the decoration of the Pauline Chapel in the 1540 s, his main energies were directed toward architecture during this phase of his life. Michelangelo, The Architect The Campidoglio In 1538 - 39 plans were under way for the remodeling of the buildings surrounding the Campidoglio web the civic and political heart of the city of Rome. Although Michelangelo's program was not carried out until the late 1550 s and not finished until the 17 th century, he designed the Campidoglio around an oval shape, with the famous antique bronze equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in the center.

For the Palazzo dei Conservatory he brought a new unity to the public building face, at the same time that he preserved traditional Roman monumentality. St. Peter's Basilica Michelangelo's crowning achievement as an architect was his work at St. Peter's Basilica web where he was made chief architect in 1546.

The building was being constructed according to Donato Bramante's plan, but Michelangelo ultimately became responsible for the altar end of the building on the exterior and for the final form of its dome. Michelangelo was now in his seventies. However he accepted this mighty responsibility, maybe the heaviest he ever had to carry upon his shoulders. The Pope's persistent demands were perhaps not the main reason why he accepted the burden: first of all, he considered it as a duty and a mission entrusted to him by God. He had served popes all his life, and he wished to dedicate his last years to serving God.

Thus, he wrote to his nephew Leonardo: "Many believe, -- and I believe -- that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him. " Michelangelo would not accept any payment for this sacred task. He soon had to face his numerous enemies: the "Sangallo clan, " construction suppliers and contractors whose fraudulent practices Sangallo had always connived at. So, Michelangelo freed Saint Peter's from thieves and bandits. Since his very first visit to the site, he criticized the model designed by Sangallo, declaring that it had been blinded, devoid of light, that there were too many columns piled up on one on top of each other -- and that with so many projections, pinnacle turrets and various fragments of all kinds, it looked more like a German edifice than a monument inspired by the Antiquity or even by a beautiful modern school. Furthermore, asserted the Master, it was possible to spare fifty years of construction time and save over three hundred thousand ducats of expense. "I spend my days supervising the construction of St.

Peter's. The Vatican's financial superintendent keeps harassing me for a progress report. My response: your lordship, I am not obliged to, nor do I intend to, tell you anything. Your job is to keep the money rolling in, and out of the hands of thieves. I will see to the building. " The architect Piero Ligorio had just entered Paul IV's service.

He began to torment Michelangelo again, repeating everywhere that he was growing senile. His intrigues made the sculptor furious. He wished to return to Florence, and was about to do so, but Giorgio Vasari wrote him again and encouraged him to pursue the building of Saint-Peter's. Of course, Michelangelo felt the burden of old age; he often repeated that he had reached his last hour and that no thought was born in him where death did not figure.

Thus, in one of his letters, he wrote: "So, Vasari, God wants me to encumber him for a few more years. I know you will tell me I am a crazy old man to write sonnets -- but since many people say that I have become gaga, I have to live up to my reputation. I can feel through your letter the affection you feel for me. Yes, I would like to move my old bones next to those of my father, as you beseech me to do. But if I left Rome, I would feel guilty of dooming Saint Peter's to failure, and that would be a great shame and a deadly sin. When enough of the construction is done and nothing can be changed to it any more, I hope to follow your advice -- when it is no longer important to frustrate the appetites of those who hope that I will leave soon. " The Rondanini Pieta Mentioned by Vasari in his first edition in 1550, it was therefore begun before that date.

According to Blaise de Vigenre, a French traveler, who saw Michelangelo work on this statue that very year, the sculptor (who was in his seventies and not very robust) chipped off more splinters from a very hard lump of marble, than three young stone-cutters in triple the time. He attacked the stone with such fiery energy that one expected to see the block shattered to pieces. With one blow he sent chips three to four fingers thick flying into the air, and penetrated to a point indicated by a drilling with such precision that he might have destroyed the whole stone, had he cut slightly deeper into it. Thanks to Condivi, we know for sure that he was still working on this group in 1553. In his second edition, Vasari reports: "At this time (1556), Michelangelo was working at it almost every day: it was like a hobby for him. He ended up breaking the block, probably because the latter was full of impurities and so hard that sparks flew from under his chisel; perhaps also because his self-criticism was so ruthless that he was never satisfied with what he had done.

Indeed, to tell the truth, he rarely completed the works of his old age when he had reached the peak of maturity in his creative power. The only completely finished sculptures date back to the early period of his career. " Here are Michelangelo's last words concerning his final masterpiece: "the course of my life has finally reached In its fragile boat, over stormy seas The common port where we must account For all our past actions. No painting or sculpture can quiet my soul, Now turned to the Divine Love that opens To embrace me in His arms. "For ten years of sleepless nights, I've been designing a Pieta. The body of our Lord was too heavy with death to be held up by his old Mother.

His head... too earthy with matter, too real... so I cut away the Lord's head and shoulders, leaving only his arm as a model for a new one, and carved a new head from the Virgin's shoulder. He backs inward to fuse with his Mothers's body, as she bends forward to raise him up. Mother and Son, the Living and the Dead, become One - Death becomes a Resurrection. " Michelangelo who could no longer sleep, got up at night to work with his chisel. As he used to do in the past, he had made himself a cardboard helmet upon which he fixed a candle to light up his work and keep his hands free.

As he grew old, he wished more and more to be alone. He needed solitude, and when Rome was fast asleep, he sought refuge in nightly labor. Silence was a blessing to him and night was his friend. "I live alone and miserable, trapped as marrow under the bark of the tree. My voice is like a wasp caught in a bag of skin and bones.

My teeth shake and rattle like the keys of a musical instrument. My face is a scarecrow. My ears never cease to buzz. In one of them, a spider weaves its web, in the other one, a cricket sings all night long.

My rattling catarrh won't let me sleep. This is the state where art has led me, after granting me glory. Poor, old, beaten, I will be reduced to nothing, if death does not come swiftly to my rescue. Pains have quartered me, torn me, broken me and death is the only inn awaiting me. " Michelangelo's Achievements During his long lifetime, Michelangelo was an intimate of princes and popes, from Lorenzo de' Medici to Leo X, Clement VIII, and Pius III (1439 - 1503), as well as cardinals, painters, and poets. Neither easy to get along with nor easy to understand, he expressed his view of himself and the world even more web than in the other arts. Much of his verse deals with art and the hardships he underwent, or with Neoplatonic philosophy and personal relationships.

The great Renaissance poet Ludovico Ariosto wrote succinctly of this famous artist: "Michelangelo was widely awarded the epithet 'divine' because of his extraordinary accomplishments." Two generations of Italian painters and sculptors were impressed by his treatment of the human figure: Raphael, Annabale Carracci, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorention, Sebastian del Piombo, and Titian. His dome for St. Peter's became the symbol of authority, as well as the model, for domes all over the Western world; the majority of state capitol buildings in the U. S. , as well as the Capitol in Washington, D.

C. , are derived from it. Bibliography:


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Research essay sample on Altar Wall Saint Peter

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