Michelangelo Research Paper

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Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 to a wealthy family. Michelangelo was always interested in art, but his father was not accepting of his decisions stating, “Artists are manual workers, hardly better than cobblers,”(Cook 2). Michelangelo tried to convince his father in every way, but won him over when he said, “If I enter Domenico Ghirlandaio’s studio, he will pay me,”(Cook 2). Michelangelo was thirteen years old when his father allowed him to become Domenico Ghirlandaio apprentice on April 1, 1488. This was the start of Michelangelo’s art career, which was prosperous until his death in 1564.
After only one short unsuccessful year of working under the watch of Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo decided to leave Ghirlandaio’s studio in 1489 and began studying with Giovanni Di Bertoldo who was a sculptor employee for the Medici family. While Michelangelo was there he learned a plethora of new abilities and discovered he was a talented sculptor. Michelangelo caught the attention of many when he made his first masterpiece in the Medici gardens called the Bacchus and Sleeping Cupid. The Sleeping Cupid was sold to a Roman art dealer, who sold a counterfeit of the sculpture to Cardinal Raffaello Riario. After discovering the piece was a fake the cardinal summoned Michelangelo to Rome in June, 1496 hoping to order other pieces from this talented young artist. Even though the cardinal failed in trying to obtain any other works from the young artist, Michelangelo decided to stay in Rome for five more years.
While in Rome, Michelangelo was able to complete a Bacchus in marble for the Roman banker Jacopo Galli and the Pieta which is now housed in Saint Peters Basilica. The sculptures he completed in Rome resulted in fame for the young artist. ...

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... to get the help and advice of the painters. All the painting techniques they showed him did not achieve the effect he wanted so he scrapped his old designs and worked from behind closed doors on the new mural. Michelangelo started work on the Sistine Chapel. Most, if not all, of the work was done solely by Michelangelo, with little help from others. He had a few workers but Michelangelo always had an eye on everything they were doing. When he finished the first half of the Sistine Chapel the Pope demanded to see it and fell in love immediately with the work Michelangelo had done. Another year past and the second part of the ceiling was finally complete and on the morning of All Saint’s Day 1512 it was unveiled to the public. Michelangelo died as a well known, famous artist. To this day his work has left him to be one of the most regarded artists who has ever lived.

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