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Although well known for many of his works, art critics generally consider Picasso’s most important contribution to the history of art to be his development of what is known as Cubism with French painter Georges Braque.

Over a period of roughly ten years, from 1909 to 1919, Picasso and Braque, incorporating elements from Picasso’s previous African-inspired period, started not just a new school of art, but a new way of looking at the world. By the end of the Cubism movement, not only had Picasso and Braque influenced the worlds of painting and sculpture, but also inspired related movements in music and literature as well.

The roots of Cubism are often credited to Paul Cézanne, whose later work displayed two distinct tendencies: Breaking a painting down into small multifaceted areas of paint, emphasizing a pluralistic viewpoint, and simplifying natural forms into basic geometric symbols.

Braque and Picasso took this much further, representing all the surfaces of an object on a single plane, as if all the planes of an object were visible at the same time. While the two of them are credited as developing Cubism together, Picasso is usually credited as influencing Braque to move away from his current period of work called Fauvism. Braque and Picasso were later joined by Juan Gris in spreading the gospel of Cubism. The three of them worked together in developing Cubism until the outbreak of World War One in Europe in 1914.

The term Cubism was coined by Louis Vauxcelles, a French art critic, in describing a painting of Braque’s. The term did not initially gain popularity, however, as the two Cubists themselves did not embrace the term. Art historian Ernst Gombrich described Cubism as “The most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture.” The end result of the labors of the Cubists was to leave no doubt in the mind of the viewer what was being portrayed and how.

By 1911, the term ‘Cubist School’ was being used to refer to students and imitators of Picasso and Braque, who’s initial Cubic works were so similar as to be sometimes difficult to tell apart. Many of the artists who identified with the Cubists, however, did not follow in their footsteps. Calling themselves the Section d’Or (Golden Section), they were also known as the Puteaux Group, but history identifies them as a loose, collaborative group of artists that are now best known as the Orphists, an offshoot of the Cubist movement, if not actually Cubists themselves.

World War One spelled the death knell for the Cubist movement, although an exhibition of Jacques Villon’s in New York City brought the movement to America, prolonging its life. The influences of Cubism continued until the end of the decade, in 1919, but the effects of two men intentionally starting from scratch and finding a new way of looking at art and the world, has been felt ever since.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso, more famously known simply as Picasso, is famous for being one of the founders of cubism, and inspiring a return to classicism later in his life. However, a large body of his work has been overshadowed by iconic works such as Guernica and his association with cubism.

Picasso’s Blue Period, while less famous than his cubism, is also well-known, the subject of many a trivia question, and the inspiration for critics to divide other artist’s work into periods of significance.

What is substantially less famous, however, is Picasso’s Rose Period, which immediately followed his Blue Period. While the Blue Period focused on pictures of the downtrodden and the lower classes, with not only blue colors, but a blue attitude as well. With the Rose Period, Picasso changed his work completely. The only commonality between the two periods, other than Picasso’s unique genius, is a use of harlequins and other circus imagery that would continue throughout his career.

Where his work had once been sad and depressing, Picasso’s paintings were now exciting and joyful, with colors like orange and pink substituting for the somber blues of his earlier period. While the Blue Period lasted from 1901 to 1904, the Rose Period lasted from 1905 to 1907. It has been suggested that the paintings reflected Picasso’s newfound happiness based on his relationship with Fernande Olivier, whom he met in 1904.

While Picasso was born in Spain, he spent most of his working career in Paris, including both the Blue and the Rose Periods. While the Blue Period is considered influenced by his Spanish roots, the Rose Period is considered the first of Picasso’s French-influenced periods of work. It is worth noting that Picasso had moved beyond what was considered his ‘Early Work’ and had already gone through two completely different Periods by 1907, when he was only 26.

While the Rose Period is not as famous as Picasso’s Blue Period, it is remarkable that the Picasso painting that has sold for the most money at auction was produced during the Rose Period. Garçon à la pipe (Boy with a Pipe) painted in 1905, went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York City on May 5, 2004. At the end of the the bidding, the painting sold for $104.1 million, although critics have said that the price may have had more to do with the artist’s name rather than the merits of the particular painting.

Picasso’s Blue Period
Marking the beginning of his career, Picasso’s Blue Period is among the most prolific beginnings to any artist’s career in the history of modern art. Well before he started producing what he would become internationally known for, well after his death in the form of Cubism, Picasso painted basically monochromatic, blue and green shaded works. These paintings, now among his most popular, were born of the somber mood he experienced in Spain, but were largely affected by his move and location in Paris.

Picasso moved from Spain to Paris midway through the year 1901 and it is unclear when he first started painting the images most readily associated with this period – in Spain or in Paris. What is known though is that this period in Picasso’s career was directly affected by his travels through Spain and the suicide of close friend Carlos Casagemas. Casagemas took his own life on February 18, 1901 in Paris, by shooting himself.

To this point, Picasso had already started to enjoy some small bit of acclaim for his vibrant early paintings, depicting much less somber subjects. However, Picasso himself is quoted as having said that he “started painting in blue when [he] learned of the Casagema’s death.” It was an almost instant change in his style, the kind of sudden shift that would come to define his career.

In that latter half of 1901, after it is generally agreed that Picasso’s palette shifted to all blues and greens, and he started depicting prostitutes, beggars, and drunkards, he painted a collection of portraits of his deceased friend Casagemas. These portraits led up to the eventual completion of La Vie, a masterpiece he completed in 1903 that currently sits in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Another work that has become representative of Picasso’s Blue Period is The Frugal Repast, painted in 1904 and depicting a couple, one blind and one with sight, starving to death and sitting at an empty table. Picasso repeatedly utilized the theme of blindness in his Blue Period paintings, as seen in The Blindman’s Meal, painted in 1903, and Celestina, also painted in 1903.

Picasso painted numerous other subjects that might not otherwise be depicted in the somber blues and downtrodden themes of his Blue Period paintings. These included individuals such as fellow artists, circus performers, or checker clad harlequins. Harlequins would become a recurrent character in many of Picasso’s works in years to come.

The most famous of Picasso’s Blue Period paintings is likely The Old Guitarist. This image portrays a blind old man clothed in rags, hunched over his guitar. Painted in 1903, the work now resides in The Art Institute of Chicago.

As an emotional precursor to the more vibrant, lively Rose Period and the analytical, departure ridden Cubism, the Blue Period represents a time in Picasso’s life when he was young (only 20 years old in 1901) and coming to terms with his life and the new found fame he was rapidly acquiring. The death of his close friend represented his growth into adulthood and a loss of innocence, all expressed and followed in his paintings from this period.

Forget Renaissance Europe. The world’s first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history, says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan’s National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair.

A recent handout picture, released from the Japanese National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, shows an oil painting of a Buddhist image, discovered in a cave in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan. (AFP: Japanese National Research Institute for Cultural Properties

Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works of artists travelling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53 samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

“Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy,” Ms Taniguchi said.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, The Lives of the Artists, in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

“It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in central Asia,” Ms Taniguchi said.

“My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in Europe.

“They couldn’t believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside.”

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances - including natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein - as a binder, which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old statues, the world’s biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Ms Taniguchi said.

Ms Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

“In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings,” she said.

After his birth on October 25, 1881, Pablo Picasso went on to become one of the premiere artists of the 20th century and of all time with his reimagining of the artistic form and constant questioning of how an artist interacts with their subject.
While Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, he spent the better part of his life living in Paris, France, studying with French artists such as Georges Braque. Primarily, his life’s work is recognized for the creation of Cubism with Braque, using geometric shapes and planes to represent realistic human and object forms.

He did not only paint though and he did not stop with Cubism. Picasso’s career was filled with numerous periods, notably the Blue and Rose period along with his Cubism period. He spent much of the latter two decades of his life focused on sculpture and a great deal of time experimenting with different painting styles that never fully took shape. In all, it is believed that he produced more than 20,000 works in his life time.

Early Accomplishments

It is the first period of his career, the Blue Period, which first brought acclaim and fame in the artistic community to Picasso. His blue period was marked by the painting of elongated images and lower casts of society in a mostly blue palette. Lasting from 1901 to 1904, his signature rejections of the artistic form had not yet developed.

In 1904 and 1905, Picasso entered what is known as the Rose Period of his career, highlighted by paintings in shades of red and pink. A triumphant painting from this period is his “Family of Saltimbanques”, a collection of circus performers, sharply contrasting with his earlier, Blue Period pieces.

In 1906, Picasso completed his portrait of Gertrude Stein, using a masked conceptual style to portray her, forgoing traditional portrait means. This was the first hint of his soon to be extraordinary departure from the standard forms of art in the day.

Early Cubism

Cubism was first developed in his 1907 shocker, Les demoiselles d’Avignon. The painting was the first of many to represent a static image in geometric, planed forms. From this point on, art began only to expand, taking on new concepts and ideas for expression of images and shapes.

Between 1908 and 1911, Picasso would work closely with George Braques, pushing his mastery and development of cubism to new levels. For years he would create the paintings that he became most famous for, unfolding and cross-sectioning the human body, common objects, and portraits in his masterpieces.

He would continue to paint almost constantly, straight into World War I, when he worked in Rome as a stage designer for the Ballets Russes.
Later life

During World War II and the Nazi occupation of Paris, Picasso’s work was not fully accepted or allowed, as it went against the traditional definitions of art laid down by the occupying German government. He would continue to paint however, having products smuggled in to him.

He was forever changed by the facism he witnessed during World War II though, and joined the French Communist Party a few years after the war had ended, in 1947. He went on to win the Lenin Peace Prize and was even able to keep his paintings from being displayed in Spain until after the end of facist rule there, almost 8 years after his death.

The final years of Picasso’s life, leading up to his death in 1973 of natural causes, were spent crafting sculptures in his wife, Jacqueline Roque, who owned a pottery studio in France. The two lived together for 12 years until his death.

Born in Spain in 1881, Picasso first learned to paint under the tutelage of his father, Jose Ruiz y Blasco, a professor of art known for his realistic depictions of birds. By 1894, when he was only thirteen, critics consider that Picasso’s adult career as a painter had begun. In 1896, at fourteen, Picasso painted two of his most well known works, The First Communion, depicting his sister, Lola, and Portrait of Aunt Pepa, which has been described as “one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting.” Both paintings are on display at the Museum Picasso in Barcelona, along with an extensive collection of Picasso’s early work.

In 1901, Picasso had moved to Paris and embarked on his Blue Period, portraying somber subjects in strong shades of blue and green, depicting an overall negativity that is attributed to several factors, including a trip back to Spain and the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Picasso painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in La Vie, currently displayed at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Other noted works from Picasso’s Blue Period include Evocation and The Blindman’s Meal.

Next Picasso embarked on his Rose Period, a direct turnaround from the Blue Period, featuring warm colors and happier subjects. The inspiration for this period is generally attributed to Picasso’s meeting Fernande Olivier, an artist’s model. While it is not considered one of his greatest works, the most expensive Picasso painting, Garçon a la pipe (Boy with a Pipe), comes from this era. It sold at auction for more than 104 million dollars, prompting critics to say the purchaser was buying the name Picasso, and not a specific painting.

In 1907 Picasso began a brief period influenced by African tribal art, beginning with the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, which portrays two African figurines. The African influence in Picasso’s work led directly to his developing Cubism with Georges Braque.

Cubism started with the school described as Analytical Cubism, inspired by the work of Paul Cezanne, who was known for breaking subjects down into their component figures. Picasso and Braque took this further, symbolizing the duality of human binocular vision by portraying all sides of a shape on one plane, and then breaking it down into simple round shapes. Picasso’s painting Ma Jolie most exemplifies the first movement of Cubism.

By 1912, Cubism had evolved, thanks to the influx of a new group of artists, including Juan Gris. The end result of this evolution was Synthetic Cubism, first exemplified by Picasso’s Still Life with Chair-caning. Synthetic Cubism represented a bringing together of more disparate elements after dividing them as in Analytic Cubism. Picasso also pioneered the use of text in these paintings, as a way of flattening the space in the paintings, as well as the incorporation of other mediums, producing mixed media works during this period.

After World War One, Picasso began to expand his frame of reference, starting with classical works referred to as neoclassical paintings, which represented a return to order for Picasso. This was represented in the works of many European artists following the First World War. This led to Picasso’s experimenting with Surrealism, which led to his most famous work, Guernica, an inspired and moving composition depicting the German bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Guernica is currently on display at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.

Picasso experimented with a series of different styles in the later part of his career, following World War Two. He became known for his portrayals of works by Grand Master painters, and his sculpture. He was commissioned to make a model for a huge 50-foot public sculpture in Chicago, known simply as the Chicago Picasso or just The Picasso. It stands on Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop. The statue was erected in 1967, just a few years before Picasso’s death in France in 1973.

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain on October 25, 1881, the first child of Maria Picasso y Lopez and Jose Ruiz y Blasco. He was born into a family that appreciated art from the beginning, with his father also a painter and professor of art. He spent a great deal of time in his childhood learning to draw and attending formal academic training in the arts. He attended numerous art schools as a child and studied occasionally with his father; however, he never finished his college education in art, dropping out after only one year.

After leaving his art studies in Madrid, Picasso lived for a short while in Paris with Max Jacob, a poet and journalist of the time. Jacob taught Picasso to speak French and the two shared an apartment in the cold of the Paris winter. He eventually ended up burning much of his earliest work merely to stay warm.

In 1901, Picasso founded Arte Joven with his friend Soler in Madrid, a magazine which he fully illustrated. For the next three years, Picasso would spend his time split between both Barcelona and Paris. In 1904 Picasso met Fernande Olivier, the subject of so many of his Rose period paintings. After the successive fame and fortune that found Picasso in these early years, he left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, known to many and Picasso as Eva – the subject of many Cubist paintings.
Picasso became well known for his group of friends in Paris, including the likes of Andre Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire and Gertrude Stein. In 1911, Apollonaire and Picasso were both questioned in regards to the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, an event they were famously cleared of in short order.

Picasso was notorious for his love life. He would often have multiple mistresses, as well as a wife or partner with whom he lived. In the course of his life, he married twice and had four children with three different women.
Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, his first wife, in 1918, a ballerina in Diaghilev’s troupe and purveyor of high society. She introduced Picasso to the tendencies of high society and eventually bore his son, Paulo. The two would clash though, disagreeing on the nature of their relationship, and Picasso’s bohemian lifestyle. In 1927, Picasso started an affair with Maria-Therese Walter, in effect ending his marriage to Khokhlova. The two never divorced, as Picasso did not want to be forced to give half of his wealth to his wife, remaining married until she died in 1955.

During World War Two, Picasso was not permitted to share his work in public as the Nazi government ruling Paris did not believe it was considered artistic. He continued to paint in his studio though the whole while, having bronze smuggled into his studio for use in his art.

After Paris was liberated in 1944, Picasso was able to publicly paint again and soon became involved with Francoise Gilot, a young art student and eventually the mother of his two youngest children, Claude and Paloma. She, however, left Picasso in 1953, claiming his abuse and infidelity as the cause – something none of his other lovers did.

Picasso underwent a long period of self reflection after Gilot left him, both coming to term with the fact that he was rapidly aging, now in his 70s, and that his philandering ways were no longer appreciated by younger women. He penned many drawings that explored his own feelings of physical inadequacy, pitting himself as a dwarf against a beautiful young girl. Some of these drawings were famously sold by Genevieve Laporte, a woman who Picasso engaged in a six week long affair with and penned many of these images of.

After his tryst with Laporte, Picasso took up with Jacqueline Roque, who worked at Madoura Pottery in Vallauris. The two would eventually marry in 1961 and spend the rest of Picasso’s life together. Picasso used the marriage to Roque to exact a small degree of revenge upon Gilot for leaving him as well, keeping her children from gaining the legitimacy she desired for them along with the financial dependence that their marriage could provide.

The end of his life was spent living in luxury as a celebrity. His life had been celebrated in equal measure to his art work and thus his appearances in films such as Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus or Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso were chances for him to play himself and satiate the public’s interest in his life.

Picasso died in Mougins, France on April 8, 1973 while entertaining friends at dinner. He was interred in Vauvenargues in a famously tense funeral, at which Roque did not permit Claude or Paloma, the two children Picasso had blocked from legitimacy, from attending.

Michelangelo Facts and Information

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, more commonly known simply as Michelangelo, is considered one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Two of his most iconic works, his statue of David, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, are among the most recognizable works of art in the world.

Michelangelo was born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1475, and is considered one of the architects of the Renaissance, which originated in Italy, and was one of the factors responsible for bringing the world from the Medieval era into the beginning of the Modern Age. Leonardo DaVinci, who was Michelangelo’s professional rival, is also considered one of the most important contributors to the Renaissance. The term “Renaissance Man” was coined to refer to men like DaVinci and Michelangelo, who shone in many diverse endeavors, including art, literature, and engineering.

Michelangelo was raised in Florence, Italy, but after his mother died at the age of six, he relocated to Settignano, where he lived with a stonecutter and his wife near a marble quarry owned by Michelangelo’s father. Before his death, Michelangelo had not one, but two biographies written about his life, and he commented to Giorgio Vasari, one of his biographers, that what talent he had in him he credited to growing up in the country and having early access to stoneworking tools.

Astoundingly, as he is perhaps most famous for his breathtaking work on the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo did not particularly appreciate or enjoy painting. After apprenticeships under noted painters and sculptors, he first gained attention as a sculptor, often producing works commissioned by the famous Medici clan. This association caused Michelangelo trouble throughout his life as the famous family notoriously fell in and out of favor, occasionally requiring Michelangelo to flee town as his patrons. Toward the end of his life, when the Medicis took over his home of Florence and he decided they had gone too far, Michelangelo voluntarily exiled himself to Rome.

Michelangelo’s first truly important work, both historically and at the time, was the commission of the statue that has come to be known as the Pietå, a statue of the Madonna holding her child, Jesus Christ, after he his death by crucifixion. The work was commissioned by the French Ambassador of the Holy See, and was completed in 1499, when Michelangelo was only 24. The statue depicts Christ’s mother, Mary, mourning over her son as he lies dead in her lap. The statue is currently located at St. Peter’s Basilica, in Vatican City, and it is noted for depicting a new standard of lifelikeness in sculpture.

Although far more famous for his works of art, Michelangelo, like DaVinci, was considered an architect and an engineer as well. Ironically, many of his works are located at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, the dome which he designed, but which was only completed after his death.

After a change in leadership in 1499, Michelangelo returned to Florence. He was consulted to finish a statue of the biblical hero David for display in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The work had been started forty years before, by Agostino di Duccio, but all that had been done was the purchase and moving of a large block of marble, and some rough shaping. Michelangelo won the contract to complete the statue over DaVinci and several other artists, and began work on his David in September, 1501. He would work on the statue for almost three years.

Michelangelo’s David is unique in one particular respect: David had been portrayed many times previously by other artists, and was favored as not only a biblical hero, but also as a representation of Florentine ideals. However, while previous works, notably by Donatello, showed David after his victory over the giant Goliath, holding a sword in one hand, and the giant’s severed head in the other, Michelangelo’s David is unarmed and unadorned. According to Michelangelo himself, the statue portrays David in the very moment he decides to go to battle with the giant, and his pose and musculature capture him virtually as he is turning upon making his decision.

Ironically, the block of marble, as it stood unused and prey to the elements in a cathedral yard, became known to the locals as “The Giant,” because of its lack of form and its sheer size. The completed David still stands 17 feet tall.

In 1505, Michelangelo was invited to Rome under the newly elected Pope Julius II. He was initially commissioned to build the Pope’s tomb, in St. Peter’s Basilica, but Michelangelo was constantly interrupted with other jobs as he worked on the tomb for forty years, the rest of his life. The tomb, which contains another famous work of Michelangelo’s, his statue of Moses, was never finished to Michelangelo’s satisfaction, and is located not in Vatican City, but rather in Rome at the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli.

Most notably Michelangelo was interrupted in his work on the tomb for four years from 1508 to 1512 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is not known specifically why Michelangelo was chosen to do the work, but the artist himself believed that it was because his contemporaries, Bramante and Raphael, convinced the Pope to force him to work in a medium he did not enjoy, to make them look better. This is generally disregarded by historians, as in many of his comments, Michelangelo, while being proud of his gifts, seemed to have something of a persecution complex.

The Sistine Chapel portrays, in a series of works, much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Michelangelo was initially commissioned simply to paint Christ’s 12 Apostles, but he decided that was too easy and instead wanted to portray the Creation and Fall of Man, which he did, including the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Noah and the Flood, and many of Christ’s ancestors.

Throughout the later half of his life, after his completion of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo was frequently commissioned to do ambitious works, such as large chapels, tombs, and basilicas. Several of them were never finished, and nothing would rival his portrayal of David or his overwhelming work on the Sistine ceiling.

Toward the end of his life, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel to paint a fresco on the altar wall for Pope Clement VII. The work is massive in size and covers one entire wall of the Sistine Chapel. The work is called The Last Judgment and portrays the second coming of Christ and the accompanying apocalypse, where the souls of the dead rise and are judged by Christ and the Saints.

While all of Michelangelo’s most famous works are rooted in Catholicism, his works also reflect his being influenced by Platonic ideals. The philosophy described by Plato was one of the cornerstones of the Renaissance, with its value on art and discourse, humility and simplicity. While many around him lived life to the fullest, even at his most wealthy, Michelangelo lived like a poor man, which was actually considered rude by some of his contemporaries, especially those who had made him rich.

Michelangelo died in Rome in 1548, widely acknowledged as one of the most dynamic and important figures of the era. This contrasts greatly with the lives of many artists who struggle for acknowledgement during their lifetime. Upon Michelangelo’s request he was buried in his birthplace of Tuscany, interred at the Basilica di Santa Croce.

“The frescoes that we are contemplating here introduce us into the world of the contents of the Revelation. The truths of our faith speak to us here from all sides. From them human genius took its inspiration undertaking to clothe them in forms of incomparable beauty” – Pope John Paul II, 1984

When Michelangelo came to Rome in 1505 it was to design the tomb for Julius II, a project that would consume him off and on for 40 years. When Julius discontinued his tomb design the first time Michelangelo was greatly disappointed and, to appease him, Julius gave Michelangelo the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo resisted the commission, saying painting was not his profession but Julius was a powerful man and Michelangelo finally agreed in hopes that the tomb project would be revived.

The ceiling, 5800 square feet and 70 feet above the ground presented enormous technical problems. Michelangelo devised his own scaffolding to reach the ceiling, attaching it to holes in the chapel wall that made it possible for services to continue below. The curve of the ceiling presented problems with perspective and, finally, Michelangelo was not at all familiar with fresco techniques.

Michelangelo struggled with the fresco technique the first few months and initially made mistakes that spoiled all he had done. Buon fresco was the technique employed at the time but it molded due to the high humidity. One of Michelangelo’s assistants devised a new mixture called intonaco which resisted mold and became the standard for all frescos.

Michelangelo also had trouble with the perspective and scale, which can be seen at the entrance to the chapel. The Drunkenness of Noah is crowded and lacks the simplicity of the later panels.

Taking his theme from creation, the fall and redemption of man spreads across the ceiling. Three hundred figures are depicted engaged in man’s ultimate struggle. A long corridor describing creation from Genesis runs along the crown of the vault. On either side where the vault curves down are the Hebrew prophets and sibyls who foreshadow the coming of Christ. At the four corners are Old Testament figures—David, Judith, Haman, and the Brazen Serpent.

Michelangelo shows his vision as a sculpture in the powerful representation of the human form that will be repeated in his work for the Medici Chapel. The figures of God and Adam in the Creation of Adam are men of the same race, both made of the same substance and both are gigantic.

Despite the enormity of the task, Michelangelo completed the Sistine Chapel in a mere four years. On the Feast of Saints (November 1) 1512, Pope Julius II inaugurated the chapel with a mass.

In 1981 the Vatican announced plans to restore Michelangelo’s frescos in the Sistine Chapel. The goal was to remove layers of soot and past restoration attempts and reveal the frescos as Michelangelo intended them. Restoration began in 1984 with a special solvent that has been used in other restorations. An air system was also added to control the humidity and temperature of the chapel to reduce further damage.

The restoration was completed December 31, 1989—a year longer then it took Michelangelo to paint it. The restoration continues to raise controversy as art historians debate whether the colors revealed were what Michelangelo actually painted. Still, the frescos are now safe and available to be enjoyed and marveled at by generations to come.

View the full ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo here

Although some may know him best for his work as a sculptor, as creator of magnificent works such as David, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was as talented a painter as he was a sculptor and should be recognized as much for the things he has painted as he is for the things he has chiseled.

As a young man, Michelangelo was an apprentice to both a painter and a sculptor. His teacher in the art of painting was Domenico Ghirlandaio, who would go on to introduce and recommend him to Lorenzeo de Medici, who would give Michelangelo plenty of work in sculpture for much of his youth.

It wasn’t until the 16th century, when Michelangelo was nearing the age of 30, that he was commissioned to paint anything. It was at this period in time that Pope Julius II convinced Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as a fresco, in which paint is laid upon damp plaster.

It is said that the original plaster recipe that Michelangelo used became moldy, causing him to request a different formula be made for the work, one which would be more durable. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has become one of the most celebrated works of art since its unveiling. Rather than depict a single scene on the ceiling, Michelangelo chose to paint nine scenes from the Book of Genesis.

The nine scenes were put into three groupings: the Creation, Adam and Eve, and finally Noah. The Creation segment details God’s creation of the world. The Adam and Eve segment bears witness to God’s creation of Adam and Eve as well as their subsequent fall from grace. The Noah segment deals with humanity’s fate thereafter, including the Great Flood.

The other great painting that Michelangelo was commissioned to work on, also a fresco, was The Last Judgment, and was designed to be the wall of the altar of the Sistine Chapel. In stark contrast to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which details certain events in the Book of Genesis, the Last Judgment’s subject matter is the second coming of Christ and the end of all things – the apocalypse.

It broke from tradition in its depiction of the apocalypse, placing Christ in the middle of all things, with human souls rising and descending around him, as per the judgment bestowed upon them. The painting has no portrayal of hell or heaven, a break from tradition that typically showed heaven, earth and hell layered horizontally upon one another.

Michelangelo took humorous liberties with the painting as well, painting a self-portrait of himself as a flayed skin being held by St. Bartholomew. The painting was the cause of great controversy, not only for its less traditional content, but also for the great amount of nudity in it. In fact, the genitalia in the fresco was later commissioned by the church to be covered up by the artist Daniele de Volterra.

He may be the most remarkable sculptor of Western culture, but let there be no doubt that Michelangelo was as talented a painter as he was sculptor. His works in the Sistine Chapel have had a profound impact on millions of visitors, art lovers, and future artists for centuries.