Michelangelo

As a fourteen-year-old boy, Michelangelo worked independently for his great friend Lorenzo de Medici in and around his palace.   He, like many young artists, including myself, dipped his finger into most styles of art, even copying some of his teachers’ prints and paintings. Though Michelangelo's earliest studies were directed towards painting, he was by nature and fondness much more prone to sculpture. Michelangelo’s early sculptural works that competed with artist Torrigiani were lost or stolen, but from them soon developed a style where he did not imitate sculptures from the 14 and 15 centuries, rather his style went much further that hint a moral theology.   At the Medici palace is where he often times was able to take trips to Sante Croce and sketch the masterpieces of Giotto, Masaccio, and Donatello. He was undeniably master of rendering the human figure (usually man) in an apathetic manner.
In Florence in 1489 is where one of Michelangelo’s early sculpture studies was executed. The "Head of a Faun" is a lost marble sculpture of a head of an aged faun with a front tooth knocked out, this latter point having been an afterthought suggested by Lorenzo de Medici. The head is sometimes identified with one in the National Museum at Florence, which however shows no marks of Michelangelo's early style and is in all probability imitated.   Another early work that reveals his style is the bronze “Madonna seated on a Step”, also executed in Florence. This bas-relief, executed in imitation of the technical style of Donatello, is an example of Michelangelo's early work in the Medicean School under Bertoldo.
Through his early works we come to the David. The marble David erects 17 feet from the ground and weighs a striking 12,000 pounds.   Commissioned by the Office of Works of the Duomo in Florence in 1501, Michelangelo was asked to tackle the sculpture after Agostino di Duccio failed to successfully complete the sculpture. In 1504 the David was completed and placed in... [continues]

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