MICHELANGELO

(Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni)

Michelangelo, in full Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, (born March 6, 1475, Caprese,
Republic of Florence [Italy]—died February 18, 1564, Rome, Papal States), Italian Renaissance
sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of
Western art. His father was a serving magistrate of the Florentine Republic and came from an
important family. However, Michelangelo did not wish to imitate his father’s career and was
attracted to the artistic world. At the time, this was considered an inferior occupation for a family of
his standing. But, aged 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, the leading
fresco wall painter in Florence. Here Michelangelo learned some of the basic painting techniques and
also taught himself new skills such as sculpting. His talents were soon noticed by one of the most
powerful families in Florence – Lorenzo de’ Medici. Here, at de’ Medici’s court, Michelangelo was
able to learn from the classic Masters and he became determined to improve upon the great classics
of Greek and Latin art. Michelangelo was born in the heart of the Renaissance movement, at exactly
the right place – Florence. But, despite being at the heart of the Renaissance, Florence was
undergoing tremendous political turmoil. His first patrons, the de’ Medicis, lost power and
Michelangelo was forced to look elsewhere for commissions. In 1496, he travelled to Rome where he
began a long relationship of doing commissions for the Popes who were making St Peter’s Basilica a
pinnacle of Western art. It was in 1496 that he began work on his beloved Pietà, commissioned by a
French cardinal-diplomat, Jean Bilhères. The Pietà is a tender and compassionate sculpture of the
Virgin Mary, holding her crucified son Jesus Christ. The sculpture captured so much power and
tender emotion that his reputation rose rapidly.
 Torment of St.
Anthony

Doni Tondo
(Holy Family)
The Creation of Adam

The
Crucifixion of
St. Peter
 Leonardo Da Vinci
(Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci)

Leonardo da Vinci, (Italian: “Leonardo from Vinci”) (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near
Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy]—died May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Lucé], France),
Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than
that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98)
and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the
Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness
that were centuries ahead of their time. The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime
and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely
on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. An artist
by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to
Leonardo, sight was man’s highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience
immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an
object of knowledge, and saper vedere (“knowing how to see”) became the great theme of his
studies. He applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was
a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb
intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature
itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.
 Mona Lisa

The Virgin and

Child with St. Anne
The Last Supper

The Annunciation
 Raphael
(Raffaello Sanzio)

Raphael, Italian in full Raffaello Sanzio or Raffaello Santi, (born April 6, 1483, Urbino,
Duchy of Urbino [Italy]—died April 6, 1520, Rome, Papal States [Italy]), master painter
and architect of the Italian High Renaissance. Raphael is best known for his Madonnas and
for his large figure compositions in the Vatican. Italian Renaissance painter and architect
Raphael became Perugino's apprentice in 1504. Living in Florence from 1504 to 1507, he
began painting a series of "Madonnas." In Rome from 1509 to 1511, he painted the Stanza
della Segnatura ("Room of the Signatura") frescoes located in the Palace of the Vatican.
He later painted another fresco cycle for the Vatican, in the Stanza d'Eliodoro ("Room of
Heliodorus"). In 1514, Pope Julius II hired Raphael as his chief architect. Around the same
time, he completed his last work in his series of the "Madonnas," an oil painting called the
Sistine Madonna. Raphael died in Rome on April 6, 1520. On April 6, 1520, Raphael’s
37th birthday, he died suddenly and unexpectedly of mysterious causes in Rome, Italy. He
had been working on his largest painting on canvas, The Transfiguration (commissioned in
1517), at the time of his death. When his funeral mass was held at the Vatican, Raphael's
unfinished Transfiguration was placed on his coffin stand. Raphael’s body was interred at
the Pantheon in Rome, Italy.
 Sistine Madonna

Transfiguration
vv

School of Athens

La Fornarina
 Donatello

(Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi)

Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi was known to the art world as Donatello
and was born around circa 1386 in Florence, Italy. He was one of the
forerunners of Florentine Art, which also paved way for the age of
Renaissance Art. His specialty was more in sculptures and statuettes than
painting. His works were also noted to have the concept of perspectival
illusionism when it came to his shallow relief. He was the child of a
member of the then guild of Wool Combers in Florence. It was then that
he was eventually educated and schooled in the home of the Martellis,
where he might have received early art training from a goldsmith, and
finally working for a famous metalworker and sculptor’s studio who was
none other than Lorenzo Ghiberti. He died on December 3, 1466 with his
last work being the reliefs for the San Lorenzo church bronze pulpits. He
was helped by his students Bartolomeo Bellano and Bertoldo di Giovanni.
 David

Feast of Herod
Works for St. Anthony of Padua

St. George Killing the Dragon

Renaissance
Artists

Prepared by: Olen Simon E. Abogado

9 - Acacia
 Baroque
Artists

Prepared by: Olen Simon E. Abogado

9 - Acacia
 Caravaggio
(Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio)

Michelangelo Merisi da Milan(Caravaggio) (29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian
painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings
combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic
use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close
physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He
made the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows and transfixing subjects in
bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring
violent struggles, torture and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo
drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged
from Mannerism was profound. It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul
Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following
generation heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", as well
as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists"). Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving
in his twenties to Rome. He developed a considerable name as an artist, and as a violent, touchy
and provocative man. A brawl led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to
Naples. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his
generation. He traveled in 1607 to Malta and on to Sicily, and pursued a papal pardon for his
sentence. In 1609 he returned to Naples, where he was involved in a violent clash; his face was
disfigured and rumors of his death circulated. Questions about his mental state arose from his
erratic and bizarre behavior. He died in 1610 under uncertain circumstances while on his way
from Naples to Rome. Reports stated that he died of a fever, but suggestions have been made that
he was murdered or that he died of lead poisoning.

Caravaggio's innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the Baroque incorporated the drama of
The Taking of Christ

Basket of Fruit
 David with the Head of Goliath

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

 Rubens
(Sir Peter Paul Rubens)

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (June 28 1577 – May 30 1640) was a Flemish artist. He is
considered the most influential artist of Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly
charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His
unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, color, and
sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the
Counter-Reformation. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and Maria
Pypelincks. He was named in honour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, because he was
born on their solemnity. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne
in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule
of the Habsburg Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the legal adviser
(and lover) of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange, and settled at
her court in Siegen in 1570, fathering her daughter Christine who was born in 1571.
Following Jan Rubens's imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in
1577. The family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his father's
death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, where he was
raised as a Catholic. Rubens died from heart failure, a result of his chronic gout, on 30
May 1640. He was interred in Saint James' Church, Antwerp.
The Elevation of the Cross

Massacre of the Innocents

 Madrid
Cambridge

The Adoration of Magi

The Peasants Returning from the Fields

 Diego Velazquez

(Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez)

Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain, the first child of João Rodrigues de Silva, a notary, and Jerónima Velázquez. He was
baptized at the church of St. Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599. The baptism most likely occurred a few days or
weeks after his birth. His paternal grandparents, Diogo da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, were Portuguese and had moved to
Seville decades earlier. When Velázquez was offered knighthood in 1658 he claimed descent from the lesser nobility in
order to qualify; in fact, however, his grandparents were tradespeople, and possibly Jewish conversos. As was customary in
Andalusia, Velázquez usually used his mother's surname. Although his early paintings were religious-themed, he became
renowned for his realistic, complex portraits as a member of King Philip IV's court. In his later years, the Spanish master
produced a renowned portrait of Pope Innocent X and the famed "Las Meninas." His only surviving portrait of the delicate
and sickly Prince Felipe Prospero is remarkable for its combination of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog
with a subtle sense of gloom. The hope that was placed at that time in the sole heir to the Spanish crown is reflected in the
depiction: fresh red and white stand in contrast to late autumnal, morbid colors. A small dog with wide eyes looks at the
viewer as if questioningly, and the largely pale background hints at a gloomy fate: the little prince was barely four years
old when he died. As in all of the artist's late paintings, the handling of the colors is extraordinarily fluid and vibrant. In
1660 a peace treaty between France and Spain was consummated by the marriage of Maria Theresa with Louis XIV, and
the ceremony took place on the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velázquez was charged with
the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the entire scenic display. He attracted much attention from the nobility of
his bearing and the splendor of his costume. On June 26 he returned to Madrid, and on July 31 he was stricken with fever.
Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend named
Fuensalida, keeper of the royal records. He died on August 6, 1660. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of
San Juan Bautista, and within eight days his wife Juana was buried beside him. This church was destroyed by the French
around 1809, so his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts
outstanding between Velázquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after the death of King Philip, that they were
finally settled. He died on August 6, 1660, in Madrid.
 Vieja Fuendo Huevos
(Old Woman Frying
Eggs)

The Surrender of Breda

 Las Meninas

The Kitchen Maid

 Rembrandt

(Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn)

Rembrandt was a 17th-century painter and etcher whose work came to dominate what has
since been named the Dutch Golden Age. One of the most revered artists of all time,
Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are seen in his portraits of his contemporaries,
illustrations of biblical scenes and self-portraits as well as his innovative etchings and use of
shadow and light. He was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, now the
Netherlands. He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen
Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do; his father was a miller and
his mother was a baker's daughter. Religion is a central theme in Rembrandt's paintings and
the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His
mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church.
Rembrandt outlived both Hendrickje, who died in 1663, and Titus, who died in 1668, leaving
a baby daughter. He died within a year of his son, on 4 October 1669 in Amsterdam, and was
buried as a poor man in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk. It was in a numbered 'kerkgraf'
(grave owned by the church) somewhere under a tombstone in the church. After twenty years,
his remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor
people at the time.
 The Night Watch

The Anatomy Lessons of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis

The Return of
the Prodigal Son
 Bernini
(Gian Lorenzo Bernini)
Gian Lorenzo (Giovanni Lorenzo) Bernini (December 7 1598 – November 28 1680) was an Italian sculptor and
architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was, also and even more prominently, the leading
sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What
Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first Pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously
identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful...." In addition, he
was a painter (mostly small canvases in oil) and a man of the theater: he wrote, directed and acted in plays (mostly
Carnival satires), for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide
variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches. As architect and city planner, he
designed secular buildings, churches, chapels, and public squares, as well as massive works combining both
architecture and sculpture, especially elaborate public fountains and funerary monuments and a whole series of
temporary structures (in stucco and wood) for funerals and festivals. His broad technical versatility, boundless
compositional inventiveness and sheer skill in manipulating marble ensured that he would be considered a worthy
successor of Michelangelo, far outshining other sculptors of his generation. His talent extended beyond the confines of
sculpture to a consideration of the setting in which it would be situated; his ability to synthesize sculpture, painting,
and architecture into a coherent conceptual and visual whole has been termed by the late art historian Irving Lavin the
"unity of the visual arts" Bernini died in his home on 28 November 1680 and was buried, with little public fanfare, in
the simple, unadorned Bernini family vault, along with his parents, in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Though
an elaborate funerary monument had once been planned (documented by a single extant sketch of circa 1670 by
disciple Ludovico Gimignani), it was never built and Bernini remained with no permanent public acknowledgement of
his life and career in Rome until 1898 when, on the anniversary of his birth, a simple plaque and small bust was
affixed to the face of his home on the Via della Mercede, proclaiming "Here lived and died Gianlorenzo Bernini, a
sovereign of art, before whom reverently bowed popes, princes, and a multitude of peoples."
Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas

Saint Sebastian
 Portrait of Pope
Urban VIII

Head of an Apostle