Michelangelo di

Lodovico Buonarroti
Simoni
(1475-1564)

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 Birth name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti
Simoni
Born March 6, 1475 near Arezzo, in Caprese,
Tuscany
Died February 18, 1564 (aged 88)Rome
Nationality Italian
Field sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry
Training Apprentice to Domenico Ghirlandaio
Movement High Renaissance
Works David, The Creation of Adam, Pietà

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 • Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni(March 6, 1475 – February
18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance
painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays
beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a
high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the
archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian
Leonardo da Vinci.
• He is the best documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-
known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty.
• Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in
the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The
Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
• At 74 he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of
Saint Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan, the western
end being finished to Michelangelo's design, the dome being completed
after his deathwith some modification.

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 Michelangelo’s vision of Art
• Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly
dissatisfied with himself, saw art as originating from inner inspiration and
from culture.
• In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo
saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he
created are forceful and dynamic; each in its own space apart from the
outside world
• He was by nature a solitary and melancholy person; he had a reputation
for being bizzarre because he "withdrew himself from the company of
men.“
• Fundamental to Michelangelo's art is his love of male beauty, which
attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. In part, this was an
expression of the Renaissance idealization of masculinity.

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 MICHELANGELO’S
THE CREATION OF
ADAM

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 The Creation of Adam is a fresco painted by Michelangelo circa 1511 that
appears on the ceilingof the Sistine Chapel. It illustrates the Biblical storyfrom
the Book of Genesis in which God the Fatherbreathes life into Adam, the first
man.Chronologically the fourth in the series of panelsdepicting episodes from
Genesis on the Sistineceiling, it was among the last to be completed. It isone of
the most famous images in the world.

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 COMPOSITION
• The main span of the Sistine Ceiling contains nine separate images,
which arrange themselves into three sets of three: the Story of Noah, the
Story of Adam and Eve, and the Story of Creation--all from the Book of
Genesis.
• God is depicted as an elderly
bearded man wrapped in a swirling
cloak while Adam, on the lower
left, is completely naked.
•God's right arm is outstretched to
impart the spark of life from his
own finger into that of Adam,
whose left arm is extended in a
pose mirroring God's, a reminder
that man is created in the image
and likeness of God (Gen 1:26).

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 • His left arm is wrapped around a
female figure, normally
interpreted as Eve, who is not yet
created and, figuratively, waits
inheaven to be given an earthly
form.
• Adam's finger and God's finger
are separated by a slight distance.

•Based on classical Greek and Roman prototypes, Adam is the ideal human
male with his rippling muscles and elegant contours.
•The pink backdrop behind God is in the shape of a brain. Michelangelo may
have used this symbol to show God's plan of creation which had not yet been
revealed to the first man.
•The woman in the crook of God's arm is often depicted as Sophia by the
Gnostics. Christian tradition places Eve under God's arm as the next creature
that He intends to bring into existence. The green ribbon that flows from the
woman represents the human life that will be borne through the
woman.

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 •Based on classical Greek and Roman prototypes, Adam is the ideal human
male with his rippling muscles and elegant contours.
•The pink backdrop behind God is in the shape of a brain. Michelangelo may
have used this symbol to show God's plan of creation which had not yet been
revealed to the first man.
•The woman in the crook of God's arm is often depicted as Sophia by the
Gnostics. Christian tradition places Eve under God's arm as the next creature
that He intends to bring into existence. The green ribbon that flows from the
woman represents the human life that will be borne through the woman.
•The two figures behind God's left and right shoulders are an allusion to the
Trinitarian God. Both faces are aligned with that of the Father.
•The similar poses of God and Adam—the positions of God's right leg and
Adam's left leg are, for instance, nearly identical—reflect the fact that,
according to Genesis 1:27, God created man in his own image.
•At the same time, God, who is airborne and appears against ovoid drapery, is
contrasted with earthbound Adam, lying on a stable triangle of barren ground.
• Adam's languid posture appears to be one of near mindless repose, whereas
the figure of the Creator fairly bristles with energy.

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 ANATOMICAL
THEORIES
•The background figures
and shapes portrayed
behind the figure of God
appeared to be an
anatomically accurate
picture of the human
brain, including the frontal
lobe, optic chiasm, brain
stem, pituitary gland, and
the major sulci of the
cerebrum.

•Alternatively, it has been observed that the red cloth around God has the
shape of a human uterus (one art historian has called it a "uterine mantle"),
and that the scarf hanging out, coloured green, could be a newly cut umbilical
cord.

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 ADAM’S FINGER AND GOD’S FINGER
SEPARATED BY A CERTAIN DISTANCE
•The focal point of the episode of the
Creation of man is the contact between the
fingers of the Creator and those of Adam,
through which the breath of life is
transmitted.

• What is usually interpreted from this particular scene is that Adam is not
being physically created, but is in the process of receiving something
momentous, yet subtle, from the hand of God.

• Adam is physically alive, but here God is about to endow Adam with what
makes human beings truly alive: the spirit, the soul, the intellect. All of man’s
potential, physical and spiritual, is contained in this one timeless moment.

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 SYMBOLISM
•Michelangelo habitually made liberal use of symbolism in both painting and
sculpture, and perhaps he was also fond of visual puzzles and humour.

•There is some speculation that much of the symbolism attributed to

Michelangelo's works is due not only to the cultural and religious climate of
Florence in the 1480s and early 1500s, but also the philosophy of
Neoplatonism .

•His writings and poetry of that time reflect his belief in the divine origin of
art, and of physical beauty, and that the intellect is itself divine.

•The outline of the human brain in the Creation of Adam may then be
interpreted as the artist's pictorial declaration of his belief equating the divine
gift of intellect with that of the soul.

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 MICHELANGELO’S CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURE

Michelangelo Buonarroti was principally a sculptor and always

claimed that architecture was not his profession; but, with a
sculptor's vision, he saw buildings as dynamic organisms -
metaphors of the human body - and he designed some of the
most impressive architecture in all history. Among his best-
known buildings are the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian
Library in Florence; the Capitoline Hill, St Peter's and the Porta
Pia in Rome.

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