Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel - The Creation of Adam

We just learned about Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel - Separation of Land and Water.

Another famous paintings Michelangel did on the Sistine Chapel was The Creation of Adam.

In this painting Adam is on the left with his arm reaching to the right, and God is on the right with his arm reaching out toward Adam on the left.

This is supposed to be the moment that God reached out and gave Adam life.




(from: wikipedia - the creation of adam)


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Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel - The Separation of Land and Water

We just learned about Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel - The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants.

Another famous part of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is The Separation of Land and Water.

This shows God flying along with his arms stretched out as he separates the land from the water and makes the oceans and continents.


(from: wikipedia - sistine chapel ceiling)


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Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel - The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants

We just learned about Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel - Separation of Light and Darkness.

Another famous part of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants.

There are 9 paintings that tell the story from Genesis how God created the world.
First is the Separation of Light and Darkness.

Second is this painting showing two pictures of God.
On one side of the painting God has his hands up pointing toward the sun and the moon.
The other side of the painting shows God holding his hand toward some plants as he created plant life.


(from: wikipedia - the creation of the sun, moon, and plants)


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Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel - Separation of Light from Darkness

We just learned about the Michelangelo's Moses.

Another famous painting that Michelangelo did was the Sistine Chapel - Separation of Light from Darkness.

AFter Michelangelo had finished Moses, the next big project he did was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
This project was huge, and he painted over 300 figures on an area over 5,000 square feet.

The paintings were all made in different groups.
One group was nine paintings telling stories from Genesis.

In the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Bible it says:
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
>God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Michelangelo made a painting of God with his arms up in the sky separating the light from the darkness.


(from: wikipedia - separation of light from darkness)


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Michelangelo - Moses

We just learned about the Michelangelo - Piccolomini Altarpiece.

Another famous sculpture is Michelangelo's Moses.

After Michelangelo had finished his statue of David he was very famous, and was asked to make over 40 statues for the tomb of Pope Julius II.

He finished statues for people from the Bible of Moses, Leah and Rachel.
After that it had been about 10 years, and the people who were paying for the sculptures decided they didn't want any more, so he didn't get to finish the rest of the statues.

Michelangelo's statue of Moses is interesting because there are horns on Moses' head.
This is because when people were reading the Bible in Hebrew they thought it said that when he came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments that his face was so changed after talking to God that he had horns on his head.
People now believe the words really say that his face was full of brightness, and so those would be like rays of light.
Michelangelo felt that this Moses was his greatest sculpture ever, and when he was done he stood up and shouted to the statue "now speak!" because it looked so good like it was almost alive.

The statue of Leah shows her face down as if she is working, and the statue of Rachel shows her face up like she is praying.
In the Bible Leah was working very hard raising seven children, and Rachel prayed for many years and then finally had two children of her own.




(from: wikipedia - moses (michelangelo))


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Michelangelo - Piccolomini Altarpiece

We just learned about Michelangelo's sculpture of Bacchus.

Another famous sculpture by Michelangelo was the Piccolomini Altarpiece.

In 1481 AD a famous church leader named Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini wanted to make a really big sculpture with lots of statues to honor the Poccolomini family name.
It was supposed to have 14 sculptures on it, and he asked sculptor Andrea Bregno to do it.
He worked on it for 4 years, but then had to quit because the work was too hard for him at the age of 70.

Next the artist Pietro Torrigiano was hired to work on the altarpiece, but he only made one sculpture and then quit.

Tdeschini tried for another artist, and hired Michelangelo to make the rest of the sculptures.
At the same time, many other people saw the Pietà sculpture he had just finished and were so amazed and also wanted him to sculpt other things.

He started working on sculptures for this Piccolomini Alterpiece, but when he was offered the chance to make the statue of David he didn't spend much time on this altarpiece because he liked that other sculpture better.

After he had worked for a few years on the David sculpture, the person who hired him died.
When Todeschini died, his family asked Michelangelo to just do 4 sculptures so they could be finished.
He did sculptures of Saint Peter, Saint Augustine, Saint Paul, Saint Gregory.



(from: wikipedia - piccolomini altarpiece)


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Michelangelo - Bacchus

We just learned a little about Michelangelo.

Another famous sculpture from Michelangelo was Bacchus.

While he was working in Florence, and before he made his famous Pieta sculpture, Michelangelo was hired to make a statue for the garden of a famous rich person.
He decided to make a sculpture of Bacchus, the mythical Roman god of wine.
The rich person did not like the statue and so he gave the statue to one of his friends.

Because it is one of his first sculptures it is very famous, and also a funny story because Michelangelo became one of the greatest artists of all time, and someone once refused one of his statues because they didn't think it was good enough.


(from: wikipedia - bacchus (michelangelo))


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Michelangelo

We just learned about the Anatomical Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Another one of the most famous artists of all time is Michelangelo.

His full name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, and he was born in Italy in the area now called Tuscany.
The family moved to another town called Settignano right after he was born, where his father owned a farm and a marble quarry.
When he was only 6 years old his mother died, so he was raised by his father, a nanny, and the nanny's husband.
Michelangelo said that part of the reason he was good at sculpting was because he grew up learning to use a chisel and hammer at the marble quarry.

When he was about 13 he moved to Florence for school, but was only interested in art, and was given a job as an apprentice to Domenico Ghirlandaio, the artist who painted the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
Many years later Michelangelo would be hired to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

After making some sculptures Michelangelo later made the very famous sculpture of Pietà with Jesus being held by his mother Mary.
That sculpture helped people see how good of an artist he was, and helped him get people to hire him so he could become one of the greatest artists of all time.


(from: wikipedia - michelangelo)


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Sistine Chapel

We just learned about the Gutenberg Bible.

Another part of early Christianity is the Sistine Chapel.

In 1473 AD the builder Baccio Pontelli tore down an old chapel that was falling over and built a new big chapel for the pope at the time called Pope Sixtus IV.
It was called the "Cappella Magna" or Great Chapel, it was the new home for the Pope and was full of many famous works of art by artists like Boticelli and Michelangelo.
The name was changed to the Sistine Chapel for the name of Pope Sixtus.

When the church is trying to choose a new pope, they put a chimney up on the roof.
If all of the church leaders agree on the pope then they throw all their ballots in the fireplace and it makes white smoke out of the top of the chimney, telling everyone that there is a new pope.
If they can not agree, then they put some other things in the fireplace to make black smoke come out of the chimney to tell everyone they have not made up their minds yet.


(from: wikipedia - sistine chapel)


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David - Michelangelo

We just learned about the Tomb of Pope Julius II.

Another Renaissance Art sculpture is David by Michelangelo in Florence, in 1504 AD.

This is a sculpture of David from the Bible, and the eyes of David are looking toward Rome, as a way to defend the city of Florence from other stronger cities.

The sculpture is 17 feet tall and made of marble.


(from: wikipedia - david (michelangelo))


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Tomb of Pope Julius II - Michelangelo

We just learned about the Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Another Renaissance Art sculpture is the Tomb of Pope Julius II by Michelangelo.

Michelangelo had great plans to build a gigantic three story wall with 40 statues in it, but sadly he was told to make it a lot smaller and only put in a few statues.

The most famous of his statues in this tomb is a large almost 8 foot tall Moses sitting and holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments in his one hand.
In this sculpture Moses has horns on his head, because when Moses came down from the mountain after seeing God, his face was enlightened, and some people thought that meant he had horns on his head like rays of light pointing to heaven.
Michelangelo was so proud of his sculpture of Moses that when he was done he hit it on the knee and shouted "NOW SPEAK" because it looked so lifelike almost like it was real.

There are also statues of the sisters Rachel and Leah next to Moses.

The other sculptures above Moses were made by another sculptor.



(from: wikipedia - tomb of pope julius ii)


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Pietà - Michelangelo Buonarroti

We just learned about the Bamberg Horseman.

Another famous sculpture is the Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1498 AD.
Michelangelo is one of the most famous Renaissance art sculptors of all time.
The Renaissance was a time when many artists from all over the continent of Europe got together and worked to share and create many masterpieces of art and music.

The word pietà means pity, and this is a sculpture of Mary the mother of Jesus sadly holding him on her lap after he was crucified.



(from: wikipedia - pietà (michelangelo))


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The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - Michelangelo

We just learned about the famous painting the The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Another very famous painting was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo.

Over 500 years ago, Michelangelo took on the job to add paintings to the ceiling of a chapel in Italy.
It took him four years to finish it, and it has almost 50 different paintings on it, with over 300 different people in all the paintings.

Michelangelo made something called scaffolding, which were like build up giant platforms for him to stand on while he painted the ceiling way at the top of the building.
He painted on what is called fresco, which means they put on wet paste to build the wall and he painted on it. The wet paste soaked the colors into the wall so it would look really good.

His painting shows many stories from the Bible, and he split the ceiling up into different parts for each area.

In the main top part of the ceiling he made three paintings about Noah, 3 paintings about Adam and Eve, and 3 paintings about God creating the world.
Around each of those paintings, he painted what people think might have been angels, and small shields with other paintings in them.
On the outside of those other 9 paintings, he made paintings of 12 prophets like Isaiah, Daniel and Jeremiah.
Below that he made 14 more paintings showing other people from the Bible like Jacob and Joseph.
In the 4 corners of the ceiling he painted more famous people from the Bible: Moses, Esther, David and Judith.
And in smaller paintings in the triangles between he made 8 paintings of the ancestors of Jesus, like Joseph.

Each one of those paintings that he did would have been a masterpiece in a museum somewhere, and he painted 47 different ones on the ceiling of a building!

Michelangelo was considered a master of painting and sculpting the human form.
That means he was really good at drawing and sculpting muscles, bones and skin so that it looked very real.


(from: wikipedia - sistine chapel ceiling)


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