TK

TK Italian artist architect

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) - The heavyweight contender for world's greatest artist ever was a genius in sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry, and he marked the apogee of the Renaissance. A complex and difficult man—intensely jealous, probably manic-depressive, and certainly homosexual—Michelangelo enjoyed great fame in a life plagued by a series of never-ending projects commissioned by Pope Julius II (the Sistine Chapel and the Julius Tomb) and the Medici (Medici Tombs). In art, he worshipped the male nude as the ultimate form and twisted the bodies of his figures (torsion) in different, often contradictory directions (contraposto) to bring out their musculature.
The list of his artistic innovations is endless, but some of his most intriguing stylistic flourishes included working marble to both polished stages as well as leaving parts chisel-toothed and rough, partly to show the artistic process but mainly to create mood and convey emotion through texture alone. When forced against his will to paint the Sistine Chapel, he nevertheless broke almost all the rules and sent painting headlong in an entirely new direction—the mannerist movement—marked by non-primary colors, impressionistic shapes of light, and twisting, muscular figures.

Of his painting, Florence has only the Doni Tondo, a bright Holy Family scene in the Uffizi. Of his beloved sculpture, however, his hometown preserves the famous David, along with the "unfinished" Slaves and a St. Matthew, all in the Accademia; a Pietà in the Museo dell'Opera dell Duomo; Day, Night, Dawn, Dusk, and the rest of the statuary groups of the Medici Tombs; and several pieces in the Bargello and the Casa Buonarotti. As an architect, he designed the dome over Rome's St. Peter's, and in Florence the Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel, both in San Lorenzo.

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475–1564), heavyweight contender for world’s greatest artist ever, was a genius in sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry. He marked the apogee of the Renaissance. A complex and difficult man—intensely jealous, probably manic-depressive, and certainly homosexual—Michelangelo enjoyed great fame in a life plagued by a series of never-ending projects commissioned by Pope Julius II—including Rome's Sistine Chapel frescoes. Michelangelo worshiped the male nude as the ultimate form and twisted the bodies of his figures (torsion) in different, often contradictory directions (contraposto) to bring out their musculature. When forced against his will to paint the Sistine Chapel, he broke almost all the rules and sent painting headlong in an entirely new direction—the mannerist movement—marked by nonprimary colors, Impressionistic shapes of light, and twisting muscular figures. While you'll have to go to Florence and Rome to see his greatest works, including the David, you can admire his final work (for free no less) in Milan, an oddly modern, elongated Pietà he was still working when he died at age 89.