Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni who?

As some of you may know, I’ve just got back from France and can’t wait to tell you all about it but have been very lazy and not done any writing while away so, as they say, here’s one I made earlier:

Mr. Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni…or Michelangelo to you and me.

Drawing of Michelangelo by Daniele de Volterra

Like Leonardo Da Vinci he was somewhat multi-talented and was considered a Renaissance man. Unlike Leonardo Da Vinci he was a bit of a grump. He was arrogant and at the same time, often dissatisfied with himself. He believed art originated from culture or from within a person’s soul and he thought of nature as a power to be overcome (compared to Da Vinci who believed art flowed from the natural world). He also generally disliked painting as a medium and preferred sculpture likening it to divine creation (even if I do say so myself). He believed that inside every stone was a figure waiting to reveal itself.

The very famous statue of David

As well as being a bit of a cantankerous genius he was also, in all probability, a bit of a stinky fellow choosing to live the life of a pauper and sleep in his clothes and boots. He had little interest in food and drink seeing it as a necessity more than a pleasure. His brother described him as ‘rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid’. On top of this, he may well have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic. One anecdote claims that when he finished The Moses he hit it violently in the knee with a hammer shouting ‘Why won’t you speak to me!?’

Er…because it’s a statue.

Unsurprisingly, he was not a person you wanted to piss off. He had a marvelous sense of revenge using his paintings and sculptures to pictorially ‘get his own back’. One of the best examples is The Last Judgement; a fresco painting on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. He started working on it three decades after he completed the ceiling of the Chapel. Michelangelo painted all the figures nude which didn’t swing too well with the Church. He therefore included the Pope’s Master of Ceremony Biagio Da Cesena in his painting as Minos, judge of the underworld with donkey ears (meaning foolishness). When Cesena complained, the Pope replied that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell so the portrait would have to remain (who knew the Pope could be cool?).

Biagio Da Cesena as Minos

He also does a self portrait depicting himself as St. Bartholomew after he had been flayed. Which was supposed to indicate Michelangelo’s chagrin at being commissioned to paint The Last Judgement (someone gave me job boo hoo). The figure holding the skin of St. Bartholomew depicts the satirist and erotic writer Pietro Aretino who had tried to extort a valuable drawing from Michelangelo. This is said to symbolize the attempted victimization by Arentino.

After Michelangelo’s death the painting was subjected to ‘The Fig Leaf Campaign’ and most of the genitalia were painted over by a guy called Daniele da Volterra. He painted drapery etc. to cover the man parts. Rather hilariously Volterra is remembered in history by his nickname “Il Braghettone” which means ‘the breeches painter’. Bummer.

I haven’t included a picture of The Last Judgement as it’s absolutely massive and I wouldn’t be doing it justice. You can see it here though.