Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists of
all time
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 - 18
February 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo (Italian pronunciation: [mikelandelo])
was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer of the
High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the
development of Western art.
 Despite making a few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the
disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often
considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man,
along with his fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.Michelangelo was
considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and since has
been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his
works in painting, sculpture and architecture ranks among the most
famous in existence.
His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when
the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that
survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of
the 16th century.Two of his best-known works, the Pietą and David, were
sculpted before he turned 30.
Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of
the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the
scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar
wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. As an architect, Michelangelo
pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library. At the age of
74 he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St.
Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan, the western end
being finished to Michelangelo's design, the dome being completed after
his death with some modification. In a demonstration of Michelangelo's
unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was
published while he was alive.
Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime one of
them, by GiorgioVasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all
artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint
that continued to have currency in art history for centuries.In his
lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one"). One of
the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilitą, a
sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent
artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style
that resulted in Mannerism,the next major movement in Western art after
the High Renaissance.
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