The best artists can conceive of nothing
You can only rely on the lurker in the rock
It is wrapped in excess stone
Wisdom guides the way
Will get it
The Complete Poems of Michelangelo
Michelangelo worked for nine popes during his lifetime, mostly in sculpture and architecture. Because of the excellent work, at the age of 61, he was recalled by the pope at the time, and took over the work on the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, with nearly 500 square meters of curved surfaces and 343 figures, and it was prohibitive to think that Michelangelo spent four years and five months to complete the "Last Judgment", a magnificent masterpiece in the history of the Renaissance.
Day after day, he looked up and raised his arms to paint, so that after finishing the painting, he almost became crippled due to his long-twisted posture, and the wet paint dripped into his eyes, making him almost blind.
evening
daytime
night
"Day" seems to be an unfinished male human statue, he seems to have just been awakened from sleep, his right hand is supporting the body behind his back, his eyes are wide open, and he is staring forward over his shoulders.
"Night" is a beautiful woman, but her body muscles are loose and weak, she holds her head in her right hand and is sleeping deeply, the owl under her feet symbolizes the coming of night, and the mask behind her pillow symbolizes the nightmare, she seems to be exhausted, and can only find peace in dreams.
The image of "Morning" is the embodiment of the virgin, plump and firm, full of youthful vitality and brilliance, and seems to be struggling to wake up from a coma, but there is no joy, only physical and mental pain.
Twilight is portrayed as a strong middle-aged man, his flaccid muscles hanging weakly, his elderly face immersed in a calm recollection, perhaps in a daze of bitterness.
The Medici family mausoleum is carved in groups, and these four groups are placed on the sarcophagus of the mausoleum.
Statue of Moses, marble statue, 235 cm high, created by Michelangelo in 1513-1516 AD , (partially completed in 1542–1545) is now located in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, Rome. In 1505, the new Pope Julius II commissioned him to design the mausoleum for the Pope himself. The design of the mausoleum took 40 years to complete. The mausoleum is located in the Roman Chapel of St. Peter's Chains, with the statue of Moses at the center.
Moses was one of the greatest of the prophets. He was the supreme leader of the Jews, a warrior, a statesman, a poet, a moralist, a historian, and a legislator of the Hebrews. Michelangelo performed in his prime. For youth represents an immature age, and old age is a period of decay, only the prime of life can be the leader of the whole nation, for the will of God. The pleats of the garment make the strength of the legs more pronounced, making the whole foundation more solid.
David, a marble statue with a height of 2.5 meters and a pedestal of 5.5 meters, Washioneggelo was created in 1501-1504 AD, at the age of 30, he created the statue of David from discarded marble, which is still in the world's attention more than five hundred years later.
During World War II, Michelangelo's David statue was wrapped in masonry to prevent damage from bombs. It turns out that although the Italians have fought a war, their love for art is really from the heart.
The statue is housed in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, which was founded in 1563 and is the oldest school in Europe to teach art, and the oldest art school in the world.
Leonardo believed that beauty could be found in nature, while Michelangelo believed that beauty existed only in the imagination. At the age of 23, one of his sculptures, titled Pieta, shook Rome. Pieta means "mercy" and refers to the depiction of Mary mourning the dead Christ lying on her lap. "Mourning Christ" was commissioned by a French cardinal, and Michelangelo boasted that his work would be "the most beautiful marble sculpture of all the romans today". In order to strengthen the viewer's feelings of pity and sorrow, Michelangelo treated Jesus' body to a smaller form, disproportionate to the huge image of the Virgin. Despite being a thirty-three-year-old adult at the time of Jesus' death, the Virgin Mary is portrayed as a young woman, a moving hint that Mary recalls the time when Jesus was a baby in her arms.
The Rebel Slave aka The Bound Slave
Dying slave
Back in 1505, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo and other famous Italian artists to Rome to build tombs for themselves, and under the pope's moody change of construction plans and the jealousy of the builder of St. Peter's Church and the pope's artistic director, in 1508 Michelangelo went to the Sistine Chapel to paint a ceiling mural, and the labor on the terrace for five consecutive years caused great damage to his body.
It was not until the autumn of 1513, when the Pope was dying, that the construction of the mausoleum was revived to recall Michelangelo, who also had his own ambitious plan to build forty-seven statues on the papal tomb, including prophets, angels, slaves, etc., but due to julius II's lack of financial resources and fragmented dispatches, the carving of the tomb was not completed. Michelangelo had planned to carve seven statues of slaves in front of the papal tomb, but for various reasons only two of them were finally completed, "The Dying Slave" and "The Rebellious Slave", in the Collection of the Louvre.
Five other unfinished statues of slaves remain in marble, half-hidden and half-dormant, sleeping in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. In medieval Italy, the ruling class erected slaves in front of tombs as a symbol of authority over the dead. Decorating the mausoleum with statues of slaves was the custom of decorating monuments from ancient Roman times.
Awakened slaves
Only I am still burning in the twilight / The sun has been stripped of its light in the world, / Others take away their pleasure while I am sour, / Crawling on the ground, lamenting and crying.
—Michelangelo