Michelangelo Buonarroti
Encyclopaedia
Britannica
IV
The middle years
After the success of the “David” in 1504 Michelangelo's work consisted
almost entirely of vast projects. He was attracted to these ambitious
tasks while at the same time rejecting the use of assistants, so that
most of these projects were impractical and remained unfinished. In 1504
he agreed to paint a huge mural for the Florence city hall to form a
pair with another just begun by Leonardo. Both murals recorded military
victories by the city, but each also gave testimony to the special
skills of the city's much vaunted artists; Leonardo's design shows
galloping horses, Michelangelo's active nudes—soldiers stop swimming and
climb out of a river to answer an alarm. Both works survive only in
copies and partial preparatory sketches. In 1505 the artist began work
on a planned set of 12 marble Apostles for the Florence cathedral, of
which only one, the “St. Matthew,” was even begun. Its writhing ecstatic
motion for the first time shows the full blend of Leonardo's fluid
organic movement with his own monumental power. This is also the first
of Michelangelo's unfinished works that have fascinated later observers.
His figures seem to suggest that they are fighting to emerge from the
stone. This would imply that their incomplete state was intentional, yet
he undoubtedly did want to complete all of the statues. He did, however,
write a sonnet about how hard it is for the sculptor to bring the
perfect figure out of the block in which it is potentially present.
Thus, even if the works remained unfinished due only to lack of time and
other external reasons, their condition, nonetheless, reflects the
artist's intense feeling of the stresses inherent in the creative
process.
Pope Julius II's call to Michelangelo to come to Rome spelled an end to
both of these Florentine projects. The Pope sought a tomb for which
Michelangelo was to carve 40 large statues. Recent tombs had been
increasingly grand, including those of two popes by the Florentine
sculptor Antonio Pollaiuolo, those of the doges of Venice, and the one
then in work for Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Pope Julius had an
ambitious imagination, parallel to Michelangelo's, but because of other
projects, such as the new building of St. Peter's and his military
campaigns, he evidently became disturbed soon by the cost. Michelangelo
believed that Bramante, the equally prestigious architect at St.
Peter's, had influenced the Pope to cut off his funds. He left Rome, but
the Pope brought pressure on the city authorities of Florence to send
him back. He was put to work on a colossal bronze statue of the Pope
in his newly conquered city of Bologna (which the citizens pulled down
soon after when they drove the papal army out) and then on the less
expensive project of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
(1508–12).
The Sistine Chapel had great symbolic meaning for the papacy as the
chief consecrated space in the Vatican, used for great ceremonies such
as electing and inaugurating new popes. It already contained
distinguished wall paintings, and Michelangelo was asked to add works
for the relatively unimportant ceiling. Twelve Apostles were planned as
the theme—ceilings normally showed only individual figures, not dramatic
scenes. Traces of this project are seen in the 12 large figures that
Michelangelo produced: seven prophets and five sibyls, or female
prophets found in classical myths. The inclusion of female figures was
very unusual though not totally unprecedented. Michelangelo placed these
figures around the edges of the ceiling and filled the central spine
of the long curved surface with nine scenes from Genesis: three of them
depicting the creation of the world, three the stories of Adam and Eve,
and three the stories of Noah. The se are naturally followed, below the
prophets and sibyls, by small figures of the 40 generations of Christ's
ancestors, starting with Abraham. The vast project was completed in less
than four years; there was an interruption perhaps of a year in 1510–11
when no payment was made.
The work began at the end, with the Noah scenes placed over the entrance
door, and moved toward the altar in the direction opposite to that of
the sequence of the stories. The first figures and scenes naturally show
the artist reusing devices from his earlier works, such as the Pieta,
since he was starting on such an ambitious work in an unfamiliar medium.
These first figures are relatively stable, and the scenes are on a
relatively small scale. As he proceeded, he quickly grew in confidence.
Indeed, recent investigations of the technical processes used show that
he worked more and more rapidly, reducing and finally eliminating such
preparatory helps as complete drawings and incisions on the plaster
surface. The same growing boldness appears in the free, complex
movements of the figures and in their complex expressiveness. While
remaining always imposing and monumental, they are more and more imbued
with suggestions of stress and grief. This may be perceived in a figure
such as the prophet Ezekiel halfway along. This figure combines colossal
strength and weight with movement and facial expression that suggest
determination to reach a goal that is uncertain of success. Such an
image of the inadequacy of even great power is a presentation of heroic
and tragic humanity and is central to what Michelangelo means to
posterity. Nearby the scene of the creation of Eve shows her with God
and Adam, compressed within too small a space for their grandeur. This
tension has been interpreted as a token of a movement away from the
Renaissance concern with harmony, pointing the way for a younger
generation of artists like Pontormo, often labeled Mannerists.
Michelangelo's work on the ceiling was interrupted, perhaps just after
these figures were completed. When he painted the second half, he seemed
to repeat the same evolution from quiet stability to intricacy and
stress. Thus he worked his way from the quietly monumental and
harmonious scene of the creation of Adam to the acute, twisted pressures
of the prophet Jonah. Yet in this second phase he shows greater inward
expressiveness, giving a more meditative restraint to the earlier pure
physical mass.
