Michelangelo :: Essays Papers

Michelangelo2 Michelangelo was pessimistic in his poetry and an optimist in his artwork. Michelangelo's artwork consisted of paintings and sculptures that showed humanity in it's natural state. Michelangelo's poetry was pessimistic in his response to Strazzi even though he was complementing him. Michelangelo's sculpture brought out his optimism. Michelangelo was optimistic in completing The Tomb of Pope Julius II and persevered through it's many revisions trying to complete his vision. Sculpture was Michelangelo's main goal and the love of his life. Since his art portrayed both optimism and pessimism, Michelangelo was in touch with his positive and negative sides, showing that he had a great and stable personality. Michelangelo's artwork consisted of paintings and sculptures that showed humanity in it's natural state. Michelangelo Buonarroti was called to Rome in 1505 by Pope Julius II to create for him a monumental tomb. We have no clear sense of what the tomb was to look like, since over the years it went through at least five conceptual revisions. The tomb was to have three levels; the bottom level was to have sculpted figures representing Victory and bond slaves. The second level was to have statues of Moses and Saint Paul as well as symbolic figures of the active and contemplative life-representative of the human striving for, and reception of, knowledge. The third level, it is assumed, was to have an effigy of the deceased pope. The tomb of Pope Julius II was never finished. What was finished of the tomb represents a twenty-year span of frustrating delays and revised schemes. Michelangelo had hardly begun work on the pope's tomb when Julius commanded him to fresco the ceiling of the Sisti ne Chapel to complete the work done in the previous century under Sixtus IV. The overall organization consists of four large triangles at the corner; a series of eight triangular spaces on the outer border; an intermediate series of figures; and nine central panels, all bound together with architectural motifs and nude male figures. The corner triangles depict heroic action in the Old Testament, while the other eight triangles depict the biblical ancestors of Jesus Christ. Michelangelo conceived and executed this huge work as a single unit. It's overall meaning is a problem. The issue has engaged historians of art for generations without satisfactory resolution. The paintings that were done by Michelangelo had been painted with the brightest colors that just bloomed the whole ceiling as one entered to look.