10-1 



B U O N A 11 T T L 



Buonarotti. cording to Vasari, was accomplished in less than seven 

 years. 



In the chapel called the Paulina, from its founder 

 Paul III., Michael Angelo, when advanced in years, 

 was employed to paint the Conversion of St Paul, 

 and the Crucifixion of St Peter. They are generally 

 considered as greatly inferior to the works in the 

 Sistine chapel. 



It is commonly said that Michael Angelo enter- 

 tained a contempt of oil painting, and used to call it 

 the work of women and idlers. Whether he ever 

 practised the art himself is doubtful ; the fact at least 

 rests on very slender evidence ; as several works of 

 his hand, which were long supposed to be in oil, have 

 recently been discovered to be in distemper, and the 

 picture of David and Goliah in the Louvre is not 

 considered as genuine. According to the opinion of 

 M. Fuseli, it is the work of Sebastian del Piombo. 



The church of St Peter's is the splendid monu- 

 ment of Michael Angelo's genius and success as an 

 architect. This fabric was begun by Julius II. in 

 1506, and entrusted by him to the superintendence of 

 Bramante. After his death, the care of this immense 

 work was conferred on Antonio de San Gallo. After 

 the work, by the change from one plan to another, 

 had, as it advanced, threatened to turn out a mass of 

 jarring incongruity, it was submitted to the judgment 

 anddirectionof Michael Angelo, who, not withstanding 

 its complexity, simplified and harmonised the whole. 

 To whatever department of art Michael Angelo 

 applied the powers of his mind, he seems from his 

 first outset to have evinced an energy, originality, 

 and sublimity of conception, almost peculiar to 

 himself; and which has led some of his admirers 

 to speak of him as of a being gifted by nature 

 with powers of a superhuman order. Majesty and 

 grandeur are the great characteristics of his style : 

 character and beauty he admitted only as far as they 

 could be made subservient to these more exalted qua- 

 lities. Considered as a painter, it was his glory to 

 raise the art far above what is included in the mere 

 imitation of nature, and to place it on a level with 

 the heroic in poetry. And it seems generally admit- 

 ted, that the success with which he accomplished this 

 is such as to leave far behind whatever has been at- 

 tempted with similar views since his time. One of 

 his most enlightened admirers, and most devoted and 

 zealous encomiasts, Sir Johua Reynolds, denominates 

 him " the exalted founder and father of modern art ; 

 of which, he adds, he was not only the inventor, 

 bat which, by the divine energy of his own mind, he 

 carried at once to its highest point of possible perfec- 

 tion." The characters represented by Michael An- 

 gelo possess that kind of elevation above common and 

 individual nature, which belongs to the personages of 

 Homer or of Milton. In either case, although na- 

 ture supply the materials, it is the boast of art to 

 new model and arrange them to the production of 

 something higher and more perfect than real life ever 

 presents to our observation. And nowhere, perhaps, 

 are there higher examples of the extent to which this 

 may be successfully carried, than are furnished by 

 the work; of Michael Angelo. The personification 

 of the Supreme Being, in the centre of the Capella 

 the Sybils and the Prophets in the same 

 3 



chapel ; are all instances of this, in which the human Buonarottfc 

 form and expression are elevated to a character of 

 grandeur and majesty far beyond the pitch of actual 

 nature, as it is anywhere exhibited to our senses. 



It is obvious, that the habits of mind which con- 

 sist with the power of conceiving and expressing this 

 ideal perfection and grandeur, are of a kind which 

 unavoidably expose those who fearlessly obey their 

 impulse to the hazard of occasional caprice and extra- 

 vagance. From a charge of this description the most 

 partial admirers of Michael Angelo do not attempt 

 to vindicate him. Habituated as he was to move in a 

 higher region, which disowns those visible landmarks 

 and limitations that effectually guide and restrain the 

 inferior walks of the art, he sometimes seems hurried 

 away by the impulse of an inventive and fruitful mind, 

 which for a time has ventured to trust imagintion 

 without its accustomed curb. It is not without re- 

 luctance that some of his ablest defenders have been 

 forced to own, that there are figures of his, of which 

 it is difficult to determine whether they are in the 

 highest degree sublime, or in the greatest degree ri- 

 diculous. If this reflection have any just application 

 to Michael Angelo, it is doubly applicable to many 

 of those who have since enlisted themselves in the 

 numerous train of his imitators, for whose follies and 

 absurdities it has often been his fate to suffer indiscri- 

 minate and unmerited censure. 



The colouring which Michael Angelo adopted is 

 the reverse of that which is peculiar to the orna- 

 mental style ; and whether it would have been an ad- 

 vantage had it possessed more of that splendour which 

 is admired in Titian, is a point which has frequently 

 been disputed. 



From his infancy he was distinguished for unwea- 

 ried diligence, and this was in general continued 

 through his whole life, till old age subdued the vi- 

 gour of his gigantic faculties. There was one con- 

 siderable period, indeed, during which these facul- 

 ties were most shamefully misapplied ; and that this 

 loss to himself and to mankind originated in an ex- 

 press command ot one whose chief ambition it was 

 to be distinguished as the most magnificent and en- 

 lightened patron of the arts, is a reflection calcula- 

 ted only to aggravate that stigma which the unpar- 

 donable absurdity of such a transaction affixes to the 

 boasted character of Leo X. During the whole reign 

 of that celebrated pontiff, a period of more than eight 

 years, the chief occupation assigned to Michael Angelo, 

 was to superintend the quarrying of marble amongst 

 the mountains of Pietra Santa, and the formation of 

 a road to convey it to the sea. Nor can it be re- 

 ceived as any apology for having ordained this cri- 

 minal expenditure of divine talents and genius, that 

 Leo X. was, in fact, aware of their excellence ; and 

 that the task which he imposed on their possessor, 

 was only intended as introductory to more consider- 

 able works of sculpture and of architecture, of which 

 Michael Angelo was afterwards to have the direc- 

 tion. 



Michael Angelo died in 1563, at the advanced age 

 of 90 years. He was of the middle stature, of a 

 bony and spare make. His countenance was disfi- 

 gured by a blow which he received in his youth from 

 his cotemporary sculptor Pietro Torrigiano. (t) 



