I read the article " The 2014 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture:"Certain of Death": Michelangelo's late life and art", written by William E. Wallace. In his article, Wallace discussed Michelangelo Burnarroti's final 18 years from age 71 to age 89. This is the least familiar part of Michelangelo's life. In our textbook, chapter 13, did not discuss too much Michangelo's later years. In the textbook, it was more about Michelangelo's earlier achievement such as the painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Medici Chapel, The New Saint Peter's plan. The later period artwork that was discussed in the textbook was the last judgement. However,In the article of " the 2014 Josephine waters Bennett Lecture:"certain of Death": Michelangel's late life and art." the author was mainly focus on michangelo's later year artworks and his changing style. Wallace made a great point by saying: "His late life was concerned less with making thing than with finding the courage and devotion to continue tasks that he knew he would never see to fruition, and this despite the loss of his closest freind, greatest atron, and his entire family. "(Wallace 1)
In Michelangelo's later years, he slowed his work and he really started to think about the meaning of life. In chapter 13, it mentioned Michelangelo was called to create Pope Julius II's tomb, and the tomb was never finished.
Drawing of tomb of Julius II, color wash 22 1/2 x 151/4, pen and brown ink
From the textbook, it says: Michelangelo was interrupted in his long labors by both Pope Julius and, after the pope's death, the popes of the Medici family, who were more concerned with projects glorifying their own family. What was completed of the tomb represents a twenty year span of frustrating delays and revised schemes. (Cunningham 301). However, in the article, William E Wallace gave us more detail about what happened to Michelangelo after Pope Julius II's tomb installed in 1545. Michelangelo completed no further sculpture after the tomb. Instead, he started to carved pieta for his own grave. Not like in his earlier work, such as the architecture in Laurentian library. It was showing a mannerism style. Per the video:" there is drama, there is mystery, and there is kind of invitation to understand that these elements can be moved and changed that pushes beyond the constricture in which classicism had been understood for so long (Laurentian Library 5:03-5:14). However, in his later artwork, Per Wallace, Michelangelo worked in substantially different manner. He is no longer the artist who insisted on doing everything himself. What differentiates Michelangelo's late life is a significant lack of comparable evidence of his day to day activity at the building site. (Wallace 5)
Michelangelo, Pope Julius II tomb
The reason I select this article is because not many article has mentioned about Michelangelo's later years. His new understanding of life. His pietas in the later period had more stories compared to the pieta he carved when he was young.
Michelangelo, marble, c. 1498-1499 Michelangelo, Marble, C. 1547-1555
He had live a long life, and he had experienced a lot of dramatic moments. His life experience changed his art. He started not care about the forms and rules, he was trying to find the freedom and release the freedom in art. This really moved me. I think it is important to learn and to know his whole life, so we can better understand Michelangelo as a person. He suffered from losing family, friends, and competitors. He was searching the meaning of life.
work cite:
Wallace, William E. “The 2014 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture: ‘Certain of Death’: Michelangelo’s Late Life and Art*.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–32, 10.1086/681307. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.
Smarthistory. “Michelangelo, Moses, and the Tomb of Pope Julius II.” YouTube, 2 Feb. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LBI-otSbJM. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.
Cunningham, Lawrence S, Culture and Values A Survey of the Humanities, Cengage Learning; 8th Edition (February 15, 2013)
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