Michelangelo

Fülszöveg

WWW'M 1
fe '.m'-' V.-",V

WMI'í^iím'I',' :
i fu 1.1
Gramercy Great Masters
M1CHEL\NGEL0
Michelangelo Buonarroti, a towering figure of Renaissance and, indeed, all art, is considered by many to be the greatest sculptor and draftsman in the history of Western art. A superb painter, architect, and poet as well, Michelangelo — the prototypical "Renaissance Man" — perhaps best personifies the extraordinary world of sixteenth-century Italy Grand popes and mighty Medicis may have commissioned a new birth of learning and beauty, urging poets, painters, and philosophers to forge a new epoch all their own. Yet, it is in the genius of this remarkable artist that the golden age of the Renaissance most brightly glows.
Born some twenty years after Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo arrived in Florence at a critical juncture in that city's social and artistic destiny. A devotee of Plato, of Dante, or Savonarola, the young artist studied painting with Dome-nico Ghirlandaio, and sculpting in... Tovább

Fülszöveg

WWW'M 1
fe '.m'-' V.-",V

WMI'í^iím'I',' :
i fu 1.1
Gramercy Great Masters
M1CHEL\NGEL0
Michelangelo Buonarroti, a towering figure of Renaissance and, indeed, all art, is considered by many to be the greatest sculptor and draftsman in the history of Western art. A superb painter, architect, and poet as well, Michelangelo — the prototypical "Renaissance Man" — perhaps best personifies the extraordinary world of sixteenth-century Italy Grand popes and mighty Medicis may have commissioned a new birth of learning and beauty, urging poets, painters, and philosophers to forge a new epoch all their own. Yet, it is in the genius of this remarkable artist that the golden age of the Renaissance most brightly glows.
Born some twenty years after Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo arrived in Florence at a critical juncture in that city's social and artistic destiny. A devotee of Plato, of Dante, or Savonarola, the young artist studied painting with Dome-nico Ghirlandaio, and sculpting in the academy founded by the Medici ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent. Direct heir to the grand tradition of Giotto, of Masaccio, of Donatello, and della Francesca, Michelangelo's success was both dazzling and swift. His early work attracted the attention of Lorenzo himself. And, at only twenty-six years of age, he carved the colossal David,
(Continued on back flap)
(Continued from front flap)
unleashing from an enormous block of marble a work which was to epitomize the ideal man of the Renaissance, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Michelangelo's career, spanning nearly eight decades, was a long, illustrious, and controversial one. His works were both worshiped and reviled in his lifetime. Sculptures such as David, The Madonna of the Stairs, the Pietd, the unfinished Tomb of Pope Julius II ("The tragedy of my Ufe," the artist would forever claim); paintings such as the Holy Family, and the incomparable frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, among others, speak to us dramatically, dynamically, and, at times, despairingly, of the artist's epic struggle to create out of nothingness the divine likeness of Man.
Front cover: The Holy Family
Back cover: Christ and the Virgin Vissza