Comparing Michelangelo's The Pietà And David

Who is to be chosen to paint arguably one of the most glorifying and absolutely stunning Fresca paintings of all time; Michelangelo or Raphael? It is easy to make this choice now because we know that officially Michelangelo was the one who created the painting. But what if his counterpart Raphael was actually the one decided to construct this masterpiece instead?

Michelangelo is an Italian artist who specialized in sculpting. A Renaissance man, Michelangelo is known as “one of the greatest artist of his time, and maybe even one of the greatest artists to live.” At the time that he was chosen to paint the Sistine Chapel, his most well known works were The Pietà and David, two sculptures. Even though two of Michelangelo’s best works at this

time were sculptures, they really showed his individuality and artistic skill. For example, in La Bella Mano: Michelangelo, it states, “The Pietà is an early example of Michelangelo’s self conscious display of his craft and his skilled hand (http://www.jstor.org/).” Simply put, even though Michelangelo was only known for his sculptures at this time, he had the capabilities and the skills to create an astounding Fresca painting in the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo’s counterpart, Raphael, was also an Italian painter. It was well known that Raphael was also an extremely productive and busy man. Many people claim to enjoy Raphael’s works because of its clarity and smoothness that it portrays. Raphael was one of the best and most glorious artists of his time. He was one of those guys who was just so immensely gifted, he could do it all. He could paint, he could do fresca’s, and he could even do oil paintings. But everyone has their rival, and for Raphael, his biggest rival was the upstart young gun, Michelangelo.
Now the looming question, how did these two artists come into interaction with Pope Julius II? Michelangelo was actually contacted by Pope Julius II to start designing and sculpting his marble tomb for when he passed on. So Michelangelo went and purchased multiple tons of marble to complete this challenging proposition. However, once he got all of this marble back to his workshop, the Pope came to him with another task, to paint the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was furious. He was losing funding for the tomb project as it is and he just went and spent all this money and time to get the marble for the Pope and he decides he doesn't even want him to complete this project? Instead he wants him to paint a ceiling when he doesn't even paint? But Julius said that he could return to the tomb once this project was completed. So Michelangelo reluctantly agreed mostly due to the fact that he needed the paycheck and money from doing this project for the Pope. So in the end, Michelangelo accepted the Pope’s offer to paint the Sistine Chapel was because he needed to fulfill his monetary needs, not necessarily because he wanted to create a beautiful piece of art.
Raphael came into contact with Pope Julius differently.

Raphael was approached by the Pope to do some designing and artwork in the Papal Apartments within the Vatican. So both Raphael and Michelangelo were approached by the Pope to do some sort of artwork for him. However, due to the rise of Michelangelo, Raphael felt very threatened. He convinced the Pope to have Michelangelo construct the Sistine Chapel in hopes that he would miserably fail or give up in rage and thus diminishing his credibility and embarrass him. But his devised plot caused the exact opposite to occur. Michelangelo took on this challenge and blew it out of the water becoming one of the most well known artists the world has ever

known.
Over the years there has been great discussion and debate over who was the most appealing of the two artists; Michelangelo and Raphael.

Personally, I find Michelangelo’s artwork and sculptures more appealing than Raphael’s. On pages 159 and 139 of Ross King’s book about Michelangelo, it shows some sketches drawn out by Michelangelo himself versus sketches by Raphael on pages 115 and 116. I think that Michelangelo’s sketches appeal to myself and the public more because they show a more masculine style and are very prominent in the facial structures. Like on Pg 159 it shows a sketch of a man on a roman sarcophagus and I really enjoyed it because of the masculine features, the muscles, the facial construction and just how overall it portrays the strength of the male persona in life. It is a very similar masculinity we see in Michelangelo’s version of David that we looked at in the powerpoint in class. The big muscles and strong bold pose is what I believe we as an audience want to see. Contra to Raphael’s sketch on Pg 115. The people portrayed in this scene just look different to me. They aren't as prominent and not necessarily defined in a muscular sense but in a overall body feature sense, the features of the body aren't as specifically portrayed as I think they should be. To me, in Raphael’s sketches, the men he draws seem extremely light and feminine to me. In my opinion I prefer the more masculine and strong personas drawn by Michelangelo versus the more soft and ladylike

sketches from Raphael at least the ones shown in King’s book.
My favorite quote in King’s book is actually the very first sentence of the Epilogue when it states, “Michelangelo would actually live another 51 years after completing the Sistine Chapel, creating many more masterpieces in both paint and marble during the course of his long career.” This is my favorite quote because it shows how the Sistine Chapel project really opened up Michelangelo’s options and expanded his options from just doing sculptures. I like the story behind it of how Raphael thought he could essentially “trick” Michelangelo into taking on the Sistine Chapel hoping that he would inevitably fail and become a laughing stock of the art world, but instead Michelangelo only used that to skyrocket his career and become a more well rounded artist.
So in the end, I would probably end up choosing Michelangelo to produce the artwork in the Sistine Chapel. He has already proven that he is a very skilled sculptor and sketcher that it was only a small change to Fresca painting. Although he had trouble at first, he proved that he was the right man for the job. I think Michelangelo is the right choice because we as men like to think of ourselves as tough, bold and masculine and that is exactly how Michelangelo portrayed us. He is a very talented and promising young artist who went above and beyond Pope Julius’s expectations.