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Michelangelo

By Eugène Müntz

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Length58m

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Michelangelo, like Leonardo, was a man of many talents; sculptor, architect, painter and poet, he made the apotheosis of muscular movement, which to him was the physical manifestation of passion. He moulded his draughtsmanship, bent it, twisted it, and stretched it to the extreme limits of possibility. There are not any landscapes in Michelangelo's painting. All the emotions, all the passions, all the thoughts of humanity were personified in his eyes in the naked bodies of men and women. He rarely conceived his human forms in attitudes of immobility or repose. Michelangelo became a painter so that he could express in a more malleable material what his titanesque soul felt, what his sculptor's imagination saw, but what sculpture refused him. Thus this admirable sculptor became the creator, at the Vatican, of the most lyrical and epic decoration ever seen: the Sistine Chapel. The profusion of his invention is spread over this vast area of over 900 square metres. There are 343 principal figures of prodigious variety of expression, many of colossal size, and in addition a great number of subsidiary ones introduced for decorative effect. The creator of this vast scheme was only thirty-four when he began his work. Michelangelo compels us to enlarge our conception of what is beautiful. To the Greeks it was physical perfection; but Michelangelo cared little for physical beauty, except in a few instances, such as his painting of Adam on the Sistine ceiling, and his sculptures of the Pietà. Though a master of anatomy and of the laws of composition, he dared to disregard both if it were necessary to express his concept: to exaggerate the muscles of his figures, and even put them in positions the human body could not naturally assume. In his later painting, The Last Judgment on the end wall of the Sistine, he poured out his soul like a torrent. Michelangelo was the first to make the human form express a variety of emotions. In his hands emotion became an instrument upon which he played, extracting themes and harmonies of infinite variety. His figures carry our imagination far beyond the personal meaning of the names attached to them.

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★ 4.1 (75)

Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing

GenreOther

Length58 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

LanguageEnglish

11. Self Portrait with Turban Quill,

2MICHELANGELO

3Childhood

4The Medici Factor

5Homecoming and Travel

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62. Madonna of the Stairs, circa 1490.

73. Battle of the Centaurs, 1492.

8Inner Tension

9The Da Vinci Factor

104. Antonio da Sangallo, The Battle of Cascina adapted from Michelangelo, circa 1542.

11The Unprecedented Sculptor

125. Angel holding a candelabra, 1495.

136. Saint Proculus, from the arca of San Domenico, 1495.

147. Bacchus, 1496-1497.

158. Pietà, 1498-1499.

169. Sketch for a David with Catapult, 1501.

1710. David, 1501-1504.

1811. The Dying Slave, 1513-1516.

1912. The Rebellious Slave, 1513-1516.

2013. Saint Matthew, 1505-1506.

2114. Slave, Named Atlas, 1519.

2215. Giacomo Rochetti, Painting after the project of Michelangelo for the tomb of Pope Julius II, 1513.

2316. Moses, 1513-1515.

2417. The Tomb of Pope Julius II, 1505-1545.

2518. Virigin and Child, 1524-1534.

2619. Interior of the Medici Chapel, 1520-1534.

2720. Tomb of Lorenzo de Medici, 1525-1527.

2821. Tomb of Julius de Medici, 1525-1527.

2922. Dawn, 1525-1527.

3023. Night, 1525-1527.

3124. Interior view of the dome of the Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo.

32The Architect

3326. Staircase of the Vestibule. Laurentine Library, San Lorenzo, Florence.

3427. Reading room of the Laurentine Library, San Lorenzo, Florence.

3528. Palazzo Farnese, Rome. View of the façade, design begun by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and continued by Michelangelo, Giacoma Vignola and Giacomo della Porta. 1517-1589.

3629. Palazzo Farnese, Rome. The facade of the inner courtyard, detail of the second storey designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in 1517 and the third by Michelangelo between 1549-1569.

3730. Etienne Dupérac, Michelangelo’s project for the Capitole, 1558.

3831. View of today’s Capitole, Rome.

3932. St. Peter’s,viewed from the West, 1546-1564.

4033. View of the interior of the Dome, begun by Michelangelo in 1546 and completed by Domenico Fontana in 1593.

4134. Aerial view of the Basilic of Saint Peter. Picture by Giacomo Della Porta.

4235. Porta Pia, 1561.

43Beyond Peerless Painting

4437. Sistine Chapel, vault, panel of the Last Judgement, north and south sides, after restoration of frescoes, 1508-1541.

4538. Vault of the Sistine Chapel after restoration.

4639. The Deluge (second panel of the archway). Fresco. Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

4740. The Creation of Adam (sixth panel of the vault), 1508-1512.

4841. Original Sin (fourth panel of the vault)