Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/135

 104 MICHELANGELO. In 1546 he succeeded Antonio da San Gallo, as Architect of St. Peter's, and from that time, except the inferior fres- coes of the Paolina, painted in 1549, he executed little more in painting. Michelangelo completely revolution- ised the Art of Painting, though there was not that ahsolute originality in his manner which is generally attributed to it; he enlaiged but very little on the style of Luca Signorelli. He must have been well acquainted with the works of Luca Signorelli, at Orvieto. He studied also the works of Masaccio, in the Brancacci Chapel, at Florence ; and he had frequented the so-called Academy, founded in a garden near San Marco, by Lorenzo de' Medici, for the promotion of design and sculp- ture. The fine coUection of antique statues which he found in this gtirden, rapidly developed his powers as a sculptor, in which capacity his original great eminence was attained. So ac- curate were his powers of observation, that he is commonly said to have been gifted with a universal genius ; he was great as architect, as sculptor, and as painter; he was a poet and a musi- cian — sublimity of conception, gran- deur of form, and breadth of manner, are the characteristics of his style; but he was far from being free from manner ; his forms were overcharged, and exhibit too uniform and prominent a display of muscle; a defect which even his women and children are not exempt from. ** Character and beauty," says Fuseli truly, " were admitted only as far as they could be made subser- vient to the grandeur of the whole ; weakness of sex or age, deformity or wretchedness, were invested with a dig- nity inseparable from his works. The difi&cult motives and positions which he always selected, display his masterly power and facility." The first important drawing by Michelangelo was the Cartoon of Pisa, executed in competition with Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated work, ** The Bat- tle of the Standard." Michelangelo selected for his subject the first alarm of a battle— some soldiers bathing in the Amo unexpectedly hear the sum- mons to arms. He displays the greatest variety in action and attitude, and an unrivalled exhibition of anatomical knowledge and skill of foreshortening. Yet in this scene of tumult and appa- rent disorder the strictest unity of motive is preserved. Eagerness to engage, combined with subordination to authority, seems to animate the energetic multitude. Michelangelo's contemporaries declared that he never produced a work so perfect in its style of form. Benvenuto Cellini calls it " The School of the Worid ;" it had, doubtless, great influence on the art of that period. The Earl of Leicester possesses at Holkham an old copy of the principal portion of this work, all that now remains of it ; it is sufficiently known from prints. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, at Rome, his second great triumph, contains the most per- fect works of this extraordinary painter. These frescoes represent the Creation of the World, and of Man ; the Fall of Man, and the early History of the World, with reference to Man's final redemption and salvation. The central portion contains various scenes of the Creation and the Fall. The represen- tation of the Deluge is one of the most dramatic compositions ; but each sepa- rate scene in this great work unfolds striking and peculiar beauties. In the triangular compartments of the vaulted portion of the ceiling, between the window recesses, are the Prophets and Sibyls, which are probahly the most sublime inventions that modem art has produced. The groups and figures representing the genealogy of the Vir- gin, belong likewise to Michelangelo's noblest compositions, and display nn-