Renaissance Art of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti Essay Example For Students

Renaissance Art of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti Essay Leonardo was most of all an excellent observer. He concerned himself with what the eye could see, rather than with purely abstract concepts (Summers, D. 2013). â€Å"Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy. Da Vinci was born out of wedlock. Da Vinci was raised by his father, Ser Piero, and his stepmother. At the age of 14, Da Vinci began apprenticing with the artist Verrocchio. For six years, he learned a wide breadth of technical skills, including metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing and sculpting. By the age of 20, he had qualified as a master artist in the Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop†. â€Å"Leonardo trains in Florence as a painter, almost certainly with Verrocchio, and he becomes a member of the painters guild in 1472. But in about 1482 he sends a letter to Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan. In it he offers the duke his skills, which he lists under ten headings. The first nine are all to do with war. The 30-year-old genius declares that he can provide the duke with original designs for portable bridges, siege engines, mining and explosive equipment, mortars to spray the enemy with small stones, and even a cannon-proof vehicle to transport troops safely into the midst of the enemy in other words a tank†( Gascoigne, Bamber.2001) Michelangelo was one of the most famous artists in history. He was mostly fascinated in forming large marble statues, but his endless artistic energy also led him to become a great painter and architect as well as a poet. He was also one of the most famous people of his time and a great leader of the Italian Renaissance, a period marked by a rebirth of interest in the art and learning of ancient Greece and Rome. (Summers, D. 2013) Michelangelo is best known for his treatment of the human body in painting and sculpture. His figures express a sense of grandeur and power, and arouse strong emotions in many spectators. In size, strength, and emotional intensity, these figures go beyond real people. Michelangelos figures are both animated and restrained, and seem to have great spiritual energy. His work presses toward the extremes of heroism and tragedy but is never false or artificial. (Summers, D. 2013) Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475. His full name was Michelangelo Buonarroti. He came from a respectable Florence family and was born in the village of Caprese, where his father was a government agent. Michelangelo had a brief classical education that dealt with the literature, art, and life of ancient Greece and Rome. When he was 12 years old, Michelangelo became an apprentice to the most popular painter in Florence, Domenico Ghirlandaio. â€Å"Before his apprenticeship was completed, Michelangelo stopped painting and began working as a sculptor under the guidance of a pupil of the sculptor Donatello. Michelangelo attracted the support of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de Medici, who invited the young artist to stay at his   palace. Michelangelos earliest surviving sculpture is a small unfinished relief of a battle, done when he was about 16. This work shows the obvious influence of ancient Roman marble sculpture belonging to Lorenzo. But the relief also shows the force and movement that became typical of Michelangelos style. During these years, he began the study of anatomy† (Summers, D. 2013). He is one of the greatest artists of all time, a man whose name has become synonymous with the word masterpiece: Michelangelo Buonarroti. As an artist he was supreme, the maker of works of sublime beauty that display the full breadth of the human condition. Yet in a world where art prospered only with patronage, Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and whims of the Medici family in Florence, and the Papacy in Rome. Unlike many artists of his time, his genius was acknowledged (New Renaissance Art 2001) Three of Leonardo da Vinci most famous works are Mona Lisa, Last Supper, and Virgin of the Rock. â€Å"Let’s first examine the most recognizable and renowned of Da Vinci’s works, the Mona Lisa. This painting like many of Leonardo’s works took a long time to finish. He was famous for his putting off doing anything but when he did finish it was a masterpiece. It took Da Vinci sixteen years to complete the Mona Lisa quite a chunk of Da Vinci’s 67 years alive. However, while taking his time with the Mona Lisa Da Vinci continued to create. Some of the main reasons that this painting is so famous are its ambiguity, her smile, and of course its theft. The ambiguity is that there has always been a debate on whether the subject was Lisa Del Giocondo   or someone else. Among the thought subjects are Da Vinci’s mother and more shockingly Da Vinci himself. Although the most popular idea once again dominates and the generally accepted subject is Lisa Del Giocondo. Her smile is another point of interest because many say if you cover one side she appears to be frowning and if you cover the other she appears to be smiling. Whether or not you believe this you do notice that she is not smiling brilliantly nor is she straight-faced she has a faint smile almost a smirk. Da Vinci employed techniques to accent her face and almost make you gaze at it. Da Vinci also pioneered the technique of putting the subject against a landscape background. It was rare to see this normally one would include a curtained window or some similar object in which the subject was actually sitting in front of† (Walker, J.A 2011). â€Å"The Last Supper i s remarkable in that the original started to fade and become deteriorated only a few years after it was finished painting. Passion For Art History EssayThe Sistine Chapel, Painted from 1508 to 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains nine scenes from the Book of Genesis. The most famous is Michelangelos Creation of Man scene, with the finger of God reaching out to give life to Adam (Walker. A.2011) Michelangelo was just 24 years old when he finished the Pieta, the only piece of work the artist signed. The depiction of Jesus lying across the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion currently resides at St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City. (Walker. A.2011) â€Å"Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti also shared many things in their work. Some of the elements that can be found in the work of both artists are theme, reflection of current cultural trends, political and social influence, and above all, a destiny of greatness. The Madonna of the Rocks, The Last supper, The Mona Lisa, David, The Last Judgment, and Pietà   are just a few pieces of their timeless legacy. Theirs were the accomplishments that others would strive to achieve and the world would appreciate for ages to come† (Grecinger, M. 2013) Artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti often illustrated Christian or mythological themes in their artwork, yet, keeping with the times and often setting the example for the times, they succeeded to express secular or humanist ideas through these same pieces. Two great examples of this are The Madonna of the rocks by Leonardo and the Pieta by Michelangelo. In both cases a biblical theme is present, and in both cases the figures are shown in worldly form, with the existence of spiritual elements. Math and Science that focused on solid things that people could touch were an essential part of renaissance art and were embraced by artists such as Michelangelo and Buonarroti. Leonardo Da Vinci created magnificent works of art which focused on these areas. Both Da Vinci and Michelangelo are believed to have created some of their most famous works of their mother’s features. Michelangelo, for example his mother’s young, pure face on the Virgin Mary, Leonardo’s used his mother’s smile on the Mona Lisa. Both artists were influenced in their work religiously. Michelangelo created The Last Judgment for the church and David for the government. Leonardo created The Last Supper for the church and The Mona Lisa for an aristocrat. Both men battled with their greatest works repainting them time and time again in hopes of perfection, and most importantly, both men have left lasting imprints upon the world of art. Michelangelo and da Vinci have many points of similarity and differences. The one greatest similarity was they are both artists of the Renaissance, thus meaning they both wished to return the art to its original glory in Rome. However, the biggest difference was the way they chose to do so. Michelangelo decide to turn to both drawing and sculpture (we all know his David and Sistine Chapel for example). He decides to return the world of art back to the worshiping of a human body. He was very precise about the human form and took it to perfection. He found that the human body is a mesmerizing piece of art and wished to create his own gods of beauty. Leonardo da Vinci decides to take art to a science point of view. He would draw figures as research in the beginning, and only once he understood both the inside and outside of the body did he start to create masterpieces. He was very big on details of every sort, starting from bodies and ending with cloth and landscape Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo Da Vinci have both certainly left their marks on society, perhaps some of the most precise representatives of the renaissance era were formed by their hands. Their representation of the renaissance way of seeing things has forever molded our world. Though they may both have seen things somewhat differently and desired to interpret things in their own way, though they may have had their own styles and approaches, they shared so many things that it is often difficult to talk about one without mentioning the other, and even more difficult still to speak of them without mentioning their influence on the renaissance and its obvious effect on them. Whatever their differences and similarities, one thing remains Undisputable, their timeless legacy will live on in the preserved pieces to be admired and studied as they have for generations and will for generations to come.