Michelangelo: The "Renaissance Man"

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the great body of work of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni during the height of the Italian Renaissance era. This describes his enormous contributions as a sculptor, painter, architect and less well known -- as a poet. His works in all of these areas have guaranteed that he has exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.

From the Paper:

"When we think of the term "Renaissance man" (or "woman" of course) we are thinking of someone exactly like the man who was considered the greatest painter of his time and who has come to be known to us by his first name alone -- that honor usually reserved for musicians and movie stars. Michelangelo -- in full Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, is still admired as one of the greatest painters and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. This paper examines his contributions as a sculptor and painter as well as his work as an architect -- which remains well known -- and as a poet, which is much less well known today. His contributions in all of these areas have guaranteed that he has exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.
Unlike many artists who are not recognized until the very end of their careers -- or perhaps decades or centuries after their deaths -- Michelangelo was considered by his contemporaries to be the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and his reputation has been maintained ever since. There has never been a time when he was not held to be one of the greatest artists of all times and a number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence (Paoletti, 1997, p. 38). People who can name only a handful of works of art can name creations by Michelangelo, including his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which are probably the best known of his works today. However well known he is for the Sistine Chapel, the artist himself considered his greatest talents lay in the area of sculpture. However, even as he focused on sculpture, he also practiced his other art forms seriously. This was in at least some measure because he had a number of role models: An artist's practicing of several arts at the same time was certainly not unusual in his time. Artists felt comfortable with such technical diversity " in a way that they generally do not do so now " because they were taught to focus on the commonalities among all the different art forms such as perspective or line (Drury, 1999, p. 41)."


Table of Contents
Introduction
The Artist as Sculptor
The Artist as Architect
The Artist as Poet
The Artist as Painter
Conclusion
References

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