Till-: HISTORY OF ART. 



TIIK msToiiv <! AI:T. 



3TJ.-MICHEL ANQELO. 



Ir Raffael was the greatest painter of the Italian Renaissance, 

 .Mi.-! i. -I Angola may perhaps bo reckoned as the groatont man, 

 11 as tho greatest artist; for like his marvellous 

 iu|u>rary, Lionardo, Mi- 

 c-in -1 Angela essayed almost 

 every style and department 

 of art. Ho was at once 

 r, sculptor, architect, 

 :ind oven poet. While we 

 remember Raffael as the per- 

 fection of grace and beauty, 

 the exquisite flower of Italian 

 art, we remember Michel An- 

 golo mainly as tho pure om- 

 IK nli incut of power, the fullest 

 expression of tho Italian genius 

 on its manlier and stronger 

 aide. Tho very faces of the 

 two men, in the representa- 

 tions with which we are most 

 familiar, seem to strike the 

 key-note of their characters 

 and their relations to one 

 another. The young Raffael, 

 as we seo him in the famous 

 portrait painted by his own 

 pencil, appears before us as a 

 youth of delicate and sweetly- 

 moulded features, with a cer- 

 tain touch of almost feminine 

 loveliness about his graceful 

 mouth and eyes. His smooth 

 young face speaks out the 

 pure and beautiful soul within 

 the soul of a real creator, 

 who lives and moves among 

 the beings of his rich fancy. 

 But Michel Angelo, as we 

 oftenest see him, stands out 

 as a grey and bearded man, 

 full of dignity and conscious 

 greatness, with an eye sad- 

 dened by contact with the 

 world and bespeaking a cer- 

 tain ineffable yearning, yet on 

 the whole rather a great 

 practical thinker and artistic 

 genius than a dreamer and 

 idealist. 



Michel Angelo Buonarotti 

 was born of a gentlo family in 

 Tuscany, March 6th, 1475. 

 He was thus twenty-three 

 years the junior of Lionardo, 

 and eight years the senior of 

 Raffael, the latter of whom, 

 however, he long outlived. 

 His ancestors had for cen- 

 turies been connected with 

 Florence, and ever since the 

 days of Giotto, Florence had 

 remained the artistic as well 

 as the commercial capital of 

 cultivated Italy. The great 

 family of the De Medici had gradually raised their city to the 

 first place among the Italian commonwealths ; and Lorenzo 

 the Magnificent, who then stood at the head of the republic 

 as virtually despotic ruler, was the most powerful as well as 

 the most enlightened member of his house. Under his rule, 

 Florence became the centre of that great upheaval of mediaeval 

 thought which we call the Renaissance. Greek philosophy 

 revived in his Platonic Academy ; Politiano and Pico della 

 Mirandola, the two profoundest and most universal scholars 

 of their day, were his intimate friends ; and Pope Leo X., the 

 real founder of the artistic supremacy of Rome, was his son, 

 50 N.E. 



MOSES. 



Lorenzo endeavoured to make Florence into the most ^timtffnl 

 ;n..i the most poliHhed town of all Italy, and ba found the 

 material ready to his hand. All the greatest painter*, poeu, 

 scholar*, and thinker* were attracted to bis court. 



It waa in tho midst of this vivid and eager artwtic and 

 literary world that Michel Angelo grew op ; it w by urn 



influence* that bit character 

 and his aspiration* were 

 moulded. Great art only 

 spring* ont of great epoch*. 

 It is the remit and oatootne 

 of a general ferment and 

 movement, of which the in- 

 dividual great artUt is but 

 the fullest exponent. This 

 was notably the case with 

 young Buonarotti, aa with all 

 the other leaden in the Re- 

 naissance. He lived in the 

 midht of a society eagerly 

 welcoming every freb ad- 

 rance in art, in science, or 

 in thonght. Florence waa all 

 astir with the new learning. 

 Macchiavelli, the historian and 

 political philosopher, was there, 

 writing his famous works on 

 statecraft ; Savonarola, the 

 fiery religions reformer and 

 ascetic, was stirring np the 

 minds of the people with his 

 vehement and enthusiastic 

 eloquence ; Lorenzo was po- 

 lishing the Italian language in 

 his Tuscan verses ; Lionardo 

 was decorating the walls of 

 palaces and convents with 

 his startling and beautiful 

 frescoes. The old conventional 

 mediaeval life was fast fading 

 away ; philosophy, polities, 

 religions thinking, and art, 

 were all beginning to assume 

 their modern guise. And the 

 position of the Bnonarotti 

 family in Florence threw 

 yonng Michel Angelo from 

 the first into the very thick of 

 this vast movement and up- 

 heaval of the human mind. 



lake all other great artists, 

 Michel Angelo waa born, not 

 made. From his boyhood he 

 showed great aptitude for 

 drawing, and his relation-* 

 placed him as a pupil in 

 the studio of Domenico tJhir- 

 landajo, a Florentine painter 

 of what may be called the 

 Transitional school. Ghirlan- 

 dajo had been a goMsmith in 

 his youth, and to the last a 

 love for decorative effect*, for 

 rather overloaded ornament, 

 and for such accessories in 

 pictures as carved furniture, 

 chased metal-work, gilding, 

 and mosaic, pervaded his handicraft. Yet, in spite of this and 

 some other peculiarities of the older types, Ghirlandajo had great 

 merits of his own, and aided immensely in forwarding the emanci- 

 pation of painting from its mediaeval crudity and stiffness. la 

 his studio, Michel Angelo learnt not only the technical mastery of 

 colour and form, but also much that waa good in composition, 

 in fancy, and in freedom of conception. Lorenzo de Medici 

 noticed the yonng artist's promise, and gave him commissions 

 for frescoes in his palace. But on Lorenzo's death he was 

 involved in the political troubles which were almost chronic in 

 these small Italian republics, and, though still bat a lad, he 



MicM Angela.) 



