Michelangelo
Michelangelo was an Italian artist about 500 years ago. Today he is still remembered as a great sculptor, painter, and architect.
Michelangelo, who came from a poor family, was trained at an early age like any other craftsman in Italy. At thirteen, he started to work and learn in a workshop which belonged to one of the leading masters of the time. In the workshop Michelangelo was able to learn all the skills of sculpture. But he wasn’t satisfied, and went out to study the work of the great masters of the past. Michelangelo worked hard to master one problem after another. By the time he was thirty, he was generally regarded as one of the outstanding sculptors of the age.
In 1508, Michelangelo was given a task —— to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. At first, he did all he could to turn down this job, saying that he was not really a painter, but a sculptor. But finally he was made to accept it. He then shut himself up in the chapel, let no one come near him, and got ready to work alone.
It took him four years to complete the paintings on the ceiling. And it was difficult for any ordinary person to imagine what Michelangelo endured in these four years of hard and lonely work. Michelangelo, while working, had to lie on his back and paint. In fact, he became so used to looking upward that when he received a letter during this period, he had to hold it over his head to read it. Finally, the paintings were completed. The great and chapel have ever since become a fascination to people in Italy and tourists from all over the world.
Michelangelo left us with a great number of sculptures and paintings. Today his works are still examples from which art students must learn, and visitors to such tourist attractions still can’t help but admire them. |
