MMiicchheellaannggeelloo EEuuggèènnee MMüünnttzz TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x1p2 / 095/ 6 /82:02025 A M8 : 4P2a gAeM 2 Page 2 Author: Eugene Müntz Translator: Arthur Borges Layout: Baseline Co. Ltd. 127-129A Nguyen Hue Boulevard Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam ISBN 978-1-78042-971-7 © Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA © Parkstone Press International, New York, USA All media rights reserved worldwide Unless otherwise mentioned, all reproductions are the copyright of the photographers. Despite due diligence, we have been unable to identify copyright holders in all cases. Anyone with a claim should contact the publisher. TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x1p2 / 095/ 6 /82:02025 A M8 : 4P2a gAeM 3 Page 3 MICHELANGELO TS Michelangelo 4C.qxp 08/13/05 8:30 AM Page 4 TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x2p6 / 095/ 6 /32:02035 P M8 : 4P2a gAeM 5 Page 5 CONTENTS Introduction 7 The Sculptor 21 The Painter and the Draftsman 83 The Architect 155 Conclusion 183 Biography 186 List of illustrations 190 TS Michelangelo 4C.qxp 08/12/05 8:22 AM Page 6 6 TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x2p6 / 095/ 6 /22:00075 P M8 : 4P2a gAeM 7 Page 7 INTRODUCTION T he Brancacci Chapel and Uffizi Gallery in Florence amply illustrate the powerful influence on Michelangelo of his fellow masters. Cimabue’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Eight Angels and Four Prophets and Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna, both at the Uffizi, plus Masaccio’s Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise at the Brancacci, all feed directly into one of the most talented and famous artists of Italy’s sixteenth century. Up until the fourteenth century, artists ranked as lower-class manual labour. After long years of neglect, Florence began importing Greek painters to reinvigorate painting that had become stuck in a Byzantine style that was stiff, repetitious and top-heavy with gold. Born in Arezzo, Margaritone was one little-known fourteenth- century painter who broke away from the ‘Greek style’ that permeated painting and mosaics. Though a true pioneer, he is less remembered than Cimabue and Giotto. Also much influenced by Greek painting, Cimabue was a Florentine sculptor and painter who quickly injected brighter, more natural and vivacious colours into his paintings. We are still a long way from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, but painting was now moving in its direction. No later than the early fourteenth century, Giotto di Bondone had fully emancipated Florentine painting from the Byzantine tradition. This student of Cimabue’s redefined the painting of his era. Between Cimabue’s and Giotto’s works cited above, the new trend stands out in the rendering of the Virgin’s face and clothing. Cimabue was breaking out of the Byzantine mould. In a later work, he would himself come under the influence of one of his own students: Giotto’s Holy Virgin has a very lifelike gaze and cradles her infant in her arms like any normal caring young 1. Portrait of Michelangelo, ca. 1533. mother. The other figures in the composition appear less Black chalk. Teyler Museum, Haarlem. Byzantine and wear gold more sparingly. The pleating on her 2. Copy of a figure from “Tribute Money” by Masaccio, 1488-1495. garb outlines the curves of her body. These features define his Kupferstichkabinett, Munich. contribution to a fourteenth-century revolution in Florentine art. 3. Raphael, Leon X, ca. 1517. His skills as a portrait and landscape artist served him well when Distemper on wood, 120 x 156 cm. Uffizi, Florence. he later became chief architect of the Opera del Duomo in 4. Cimabue, Madonna in Majesty with Eight Angels Florence, whose bell tower he started in the Florentine Gothic and Four Prophets, ca. 1280. style. Like Michelangelo after him, he was a man of many talents. Distemper on wood, 385 x 223 cm. Uffizi, Florence. The fourteenth century proved most dynamic and Giotto’s style 5. Giotto de Bondone, Madonna Enthroned with Child, spread wide and far thanks to Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, Angels and Saints, 1306-1310. Andrea di Cione (a.k.a. Orcagna) and other heirs. Distemper on wood, 325 x 204 cm. Uffizi, Florence. 7 TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x1p3 / 095/ 6 /82:03055 A M8 : 4P2a gAeM 8 Page 8 INTRODUCTION 8 TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x1p8 / 095/ 6 /42:01015 P M8 : 4P2a gAeM 9 Page 9 INTRODUCTION 9 TTSS MMiicchheellaannggeelloo 4ECN.Gq xPp- O K0.8q/x1p5 / 095/ 6 /1210:0152 A8M: 4 2P aAgMe 1P0age 10 INTRODUCTION Next came a period of International Gothic influence in the radiate pure shame and suffering. It is distinctly more terrifying fifteenth century just as Masaccio erupted into the Florentine art than Masolino’s treatment of the same theme opposite it. Late scene with his rich intricacies of style. His impact on twentieth-century restoration work on the chapel abolished the Michelangelo was to be dramatic. Masaccio’s actual name was fig leaves, bringing all the genitalia back into full view: this was Tommaso di Giovanni Cassi; born in 1401, he died after only the first nude painting ever and Masaccio was offering art now twenty-seven hyperactive years. He was among the first to be far removed from anything Byzantine. His painting was so called by his given name, a sure sign of new, higher social status original that Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, for artists. Two noteworthy works are his Trinity at the Santa Caravaggio, Ingrès and Michelangelo himself all went out of their Maria Novella and the Expulsion from Paradise in the Brancacci way to see it. Whatever direction their works took, each had his Chapel. This leading revolutionary of Italian Renaissance art debt to Masaccio. upset all the existing rules. Influenced by Giotto, Brunelleschi’s new architectural attitude to perspective, Donatello’s sculpture Masaccio’s legacy is huge. Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (a.k.a. Fra and other friends or cohorts, Masaccio added perspective into Angelico) came much under his influence, though many years his his frescoes alongside those of Brancacci, populated with figures senior. This pious and humble Dominican friar completed lovely so lifelike the eye almost senses their movements. Masaccio frescoes for the cloisters and cells of the San Marco Convent, steers attention into exactly what to notice, leaving viewers no including the Annunciation. Then came Domenico Veneziano, leeway for apathy. Expulsion from Paradise is easily his who ripened Fra Angelico’s style into the full firm substance and masterpiece: hunched over with sin and guilt, the two figures refinement specific to Florentine Renaissance art. 10