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Essay / Michelangelo's Pieta
Michelangelo was an Italian architect, engineer, poet, sculptor, and great man of the Italian Renaissance who specialized in designing sculptures on religious subjects. He was born to a government agent in Italy on March 6, 1475 and died on February 18, 1564. By the age of thirteen, Michelangelo had attended school and was beginning his career in sculpture, design and sculpture by apprenticing with a famous Florentine painter named Domenico Ghirlandaio. Although influenced by Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo tried to hide it because he wanted to make the people understand that he was a completely self-taught artist. He ended his activity after almost a year of work as a painter and turned to sculpture. As a result, he finds himself in the roots of the Medici family which was an influential family in Italy. Shortly after the fall of the Medici family's rule, Michelangelo fled to the Italian city of Rome, a major artistic center at the time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn Rome, he created his very first marble sculpture at the age of twenty-three. This sculpture was the famous pieta which depicted an image of Mary holding the lifeless body of her son Jesus Christ just after he had been thrown from the cross where he had been crucified. The sculpture was a marvelous design filled with creativity and one of the largest Michelangelo statues ever created. Due to his success as a sculptor, he was commissioned by Pope Julius II to create a painting for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. In Rome, he created his very first marble sculpture, the famous pieta, around the age of 23. The sculpture depicted Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding the lifeless body of her son Jesus Christ just after he was taken down from the cross where he had been crucified. It was such a wonderful design, filled with a lot of creativity and one of his very first largest statues he made in his life. This is why Pope Julius II asked him to create a painting for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican Rome. This, however, proved to be one of his greatest works. The sculpture covered 1,000 square meters and depicted several episodes from the Old Testament, each carrying a message about the creation of the world. For example, they showed the scenes of Adam and Eve, the reign of Noah, etc. Messages from the Old Testament prophets were also included, along with other characters (http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org/Altars/Pieta/Pieta.htm). He began his work painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508 and later. completed in 1512. After its completion, Pope Julius still wanted him to design a statue for his tomb by making 40 marble statues, but unfortunately he was unable to complete all forty and only three were made. Pieta is a great masterpiece, one of the greatest Renaissance sculptures made by Michelangelo for the chapel of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. It is a one-of-a-kind statue of Michelangelo's great works on the themes of its maker. Cardinal Jean De Billheres commissioned the construction of this large statue. It was actually designed for the cardinal's funerary monument, but was later moved to its current location in the 18th century, near the first church as you enter the basilica (http://gardenofpraise.com/art50.htm ).The theme or subject of the statue had a Nordic origin which was very popular at that time in France. Michelangelo's perception and interpretation of the statue is quite static and unique compared to those of his predecessors. He wears agreat importance because its presence balances the ideologies and concepts of beauty of the Renaissance with those of classical beauty and naturalism. The Pieta statue is one of the most accomplished works of the great architect SirMichelangelo. The structure of the pieta statue is pyramidal in nature. The peaks of the statue coincide with the head of Mary, mother of Jesus. As the statue descends the drape of the Virgin Mary's robe, it gradually widens towards the base and towards the rock of Golgotha. The numbers apparently appear disproportionate due to the difficulty of attempting to depict the image of an adult man cradled full length on a woman's lap. Most of the virgin's body seems hidden by the nature of her monumental draperies and yet the relationship between the figures seems more natural. The marks representing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ appear tiny and limited to very small nail marks, representing the wounds on Jesus' side (http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org/Altars/Pieta/Pieta.htm).The representation of the Madonna seems to appear very young and its particularity would be to have three different interpretations. The first symbolism regarding his youth signifies uncorrupted purity. Michelangelo explained this to one of his biographers, Sir Ascanio Condivi. The second explanation about the statue and Michelangelo's treatment of it was greatly influenced by the passion he had formed towards Dante's Divina Commedia. The fact that he knew the work so well to a certain extent he went to Bologna and gave it great hospitality by reciting various biblical verses. His perception of reciting this prayer was that “Christ” was a component of the three figures of the trinity, and then Mary, mother of Jesus, would be his daughter because it was she who gave birth to him. In his third explanation, Michelangelo explains that such freshness observed in his youth is a true flower of purity that can only be maintained by natural means achieved through the powers of God's acts. The exposition behind this analogy is visible when the viewer looks at the image and actually observes Mary holding the baby Jesus. Marry's youthful appearance and perhaps the serene facial expression followed by the position of her arms on the body of the baby Jesus would suggest that she was actually looking at him and perhaps that is what she was seeing . In extreme contrast, another person observing the same thing would not read the same thing when looking at the diagram but would in fact represent a picture of the future. If the meaning of the sculpture had to be interpreted, it would not come literally without first tracing its origin. According to the pieta, the duty that children owe to their parents is the same duty that humans owe to their gods (http://www.statue.com/michelangelo-pieta.html). Although there were several depictions and precedents of painted sculptures of the virgin Marry mourning her son over his corpse, the art and theme of these paintings appear to have been like romances in Italian sculptures. This was strongly influenced by the presence of such pietà in Northern art and especially received much influence from Poland, Germany and France, the cardinal's country of origin. Furthermore, it was also discovered that the Church of San Domenico in Bologna had several pietas. The conclusion was that the person who commissioned the construction of such pietas must have had such images in mind. The history of the construction of the pieta spans eternity as the construction process apparently lasted two consecutive years. Michelangelo's interpretation of the statues remains static and unique, very different from what others might have thought. He concentrated..