michelangelo accomplishments 699

The accomplishments of Michelangelo and why he is truly one of the greatest artists of all time good attention to detail and argument Eng. 102 Mark Hodgkins Spring 1997 pp. 1 Divine Status Imagine you are in a museum and you notice a sizable crowd around a corner across the room. In bewilderment, you walk over and begin to make way amidst the people. As you shuffle closer to the center of attention, you become aware they are admiring a statue, a very large statue, towering above the thickness of the crowd. Still unsatisfied and unable to recognize the work of art, you impatiently proceed toward the front. You finally approach a rope enclosing the base of the sculpture. A colossal figure of fourteen feet stands before you. It immediately absorbs all of your attention. Your hands fall from your hips, your jaw drops open, and your head tilts back as your eyes inch their way to the top. The background seems to turn black and the crowd fades into the distance while your full attention is devoted to it, or rather to him. You are overtaken by curiosity and you want to gently glide your fingers over its fleshy surface to make sure it is really carved of stone. Indeed it is. It is the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest artist who ever lived. He was a sculptor, painter, poet, architect and engineer. His work defined the High Renassance Era and superceded any work produced during the sixteenth century. His awesomely painted figures in the Sistine Chapel and many architectural designs and sculptures influenced many creators for three hundred years following his death. Michelangelo began creating at a very early age. By the time he was sixteen he had already produced two relief sculptures. By age twenty-five he proved not only had he surpassed all modern artists but also the Greeks and the Romans with his statue of David. Unlike artists before him, Michelangelo represents The Old Testament hero before the comfrontation with Goliath, not after. He makes the viewer aware of tension in reserve by the posture of the subject and the stern facial expression. The ruggedness of the slightly oversized hands and feet add to the statues sense of power. The attention to detail in the smoothly carved veins and muscles add even more to the illusion of action to come. Just one year later he was commissioned by Pope Julius II to undertake a project so great that the results yeilded an unsurpassed achievement of a single artist of all time. Only Michelangelo could have possibly achieved such unprecedented work. It is the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He overcame many difficulties to complete the task: the ceiling was seventy feet high; the paintings were large in scale; and he had to work lying on his back on scaffolding for many years. Although he considered himself not a painter, he produced some of the finest pictorial images ever devised. It consists of nine scenes from the Book of Genesis surrounded by images of prophets on marble thrones. These awesome, mighty images, demonstrates Michelangelo's masterly understanding of human anatomy and movement, changed the course of painting in the West. Later in his life Michelangelo devoted his attention more toward architecture and completed the plan of St. Peter's, the Vatican, originally designed by the arhitect Donato Bramante. It became Michelangelo's most notable masterpeices as an architect. With major modifications of the original plan he supervised and created a structure of monumental proportions. His innovative design for the enormous ribbed dome of St. Peter's became the symbol of authority and the model, for domes all over the Western world. The majority of state capitol buildings in the U.S. including the capitol in Washington, D.C., are prime examples of the tremendous influence he exerted. Throughout his lifetime, Michelangelo was an intimate of princes, popes, cardinals, painters, and poets. He was widely awarded the epithet "divine" because of his extraordinary accomplishments. He expressed his view of the world through his art and impressed many generations by his treatment of the human figure and architectural talents. He was truly the greatest artist the world has ever known. . The accomplishments of Michelangelo and why he is truly one of the greatest artists of all. demonstrates Michelangelo& apos;s masterly understanding of human anatomy and movement, changed the course of painting in the West. Later in his life Michelangelo