Original subtitles

Michelangelo was probably the most potent sculptor who ever wielded a chisel,

but he was also a great painter and an architect too.

Everything about him seemed monumental.

His passion, his temper, his ambition.

But he was also a deeply spiritual man and a sensualist

whose heroic and erotic vision of the nude male body

has perhaps never been surpassed.

Michelangelo Buonarroti Simone was born on March the 6th, 1475.

In the small town of Caprese, 50 miles southeast of Florence.

He later claimed his family was a very noble descent,

but in fact his father was a regional administrator,

a member of the Florentine middle class.

As a boy, Michelangelo was sent to a grammar school,

but to his father's dismay, he showed more interest in drawing

than in his academic studies.

But Michelangelo already had an obstinate streak,

and at 13 he was allowed to begin his training in the workshop of a respected painter.

Under Domenico Ghirlandaio, he learnt the rudiments of technique,

including drawing from the nude model,

the start of his lifelong creative love affair with the human body.

But after completing only the first year of his apprenticeship,

he left, to join the so-called Medici Academy.

This wasn't so much a school, but a garden,

where the rulers of Florence housed their collection of classical sculpture,

and where aspiring young artists came to work and train.

A competitive bunch, their rivalry sometimes spilled over into violence.

One young sculptor is said to have been so incensed by Michelangelo's arrogance,

that he punched him in the face, flattening his nose for life.

The Medici Academy fostered in Michelangelo a lifelong love of sculpture,

and he took up the hammer and chisel and produced his own work, this one,

when he was just 17.

It's called The Battle of the Centaurs,

and it shows the classical struggle between reason and passion.

Now, if we're being over hard on the young artists,

we might say that the background is very, very flat,

and the figures are slightly awkward in the way that they project outwards.

But look again, and you see a real virtuosi

who's able to convey this seething mass of forms,

from the figures on the left-hand side,

who hold rocks out of which they're made, projecting our eyes this way,

and then we meander, serpent-like, across everything.

The figures are really anatomically correct.

If you look at the detail that Michelangelo renders them with,

and he has this grid-like structure, but everything's breaking out of it.

And what we see is an artist who's able to convey power,

violence, sensuality and movement.

And this is just a taster of what's to come.

The young artist's skill so captivated Lorenzo de' Medici

that he gave him a room in the palace

and a salary of five ducats a month.

Still in his teens,

Michelangelo found himself at the very heart of the Florentine court.

His patron, Lorenzo de' Medici,

was the archetypal Renaissance prince,

a patron of the arts, a scholar and a poet.

At his court, philosophers and artists

sought to revive the culture and thinking of the Greek and Roman past.

Literally meaning rebirth,

the Renaissance heralded a flourishing of art and scholarship,

marking a significant shift in thinking,

where man moved increasingly to the centre of his known world.

But within a year,

Michelangelo's patrons, the Medici family,

had been banished,

and Florence was declared a republic.

In 1496,

Michelangelo decided to try his luck here in Rome.

And when he arrived here in the summer,

he discovered an awe-inspiring mixture of pagan ruin,

Christian monument and bustling narrow streets

set amidst open fields and vineyards.

But there were even more interesting developments underground,

with the excavation, on a large scale,

of classical sculptures and antique treasure.

Michelangelo already had a good knowledge of classical sculpture

from the Medici collections.

He'd copied a Roman cupid so convincingly

that it had been sold as an original antique.

In the event, the buyer, one Cardinal Riario,

was the man who gave the young artist his first commission in Rome,

this sculpture of Bacchus.

It's a garden statue, modelled on the antique,

but modern in its approach.

Rather than suggesting poise and balance,

central to the classical tradition,

the figure is almost staggering,

like a real drunk.

The body is fleshy, sensual,

and was considered rather unwholesome.

For these reasons,

this startlingly original work

was rejected as improper by the Cardinal.

But for Michelangelo,

it was the beginning of a radical new approach

to the treatment of the human form.

Michelangelo didn't feel comfortable in Rome.

Corruption, violence and intrigue

permeated every aspect of Roman society,

thanks to the Pope and his family,

the ruthless Borgias.

He wrote to his father back in Florence,

in France.

They sell the blood of Christ by handfuls here,

and have closed the road to all goodness.

However, in 1497,

his fortunes turned when a French papal ambassador

asked him to make a figure of the Pietà,

the Virgin mourning her dead son.

It's a sublimely carved work,

demonstrating his skill at transforming marble

into drapery and human flesh.

Michelangelo, at 24,

makes a sculpture suspended in eternal youth.

He shows the mother of Christ as if younger than her son.

She shows no visible demonstration of grief.

Her features are calm,

and she holds out a hand in a gesture of contemplation.

It's also Michelangelo's only signed work.

A band across the Virgin's breast proclaims,

Michelangelo the Florentine did this.

He returned to the family home just after his 26th birthday in 1504,

tempted back to Florence by the possibility of a prestigious project

which would establish his reputation as the greatest sculptor of the Italian Renaissance.

The city was recovering from a turbulent period

and was keen to enhance its status as an independent republic,

particularly with highly charged and symbolic works of art.

There was a big block of marble

that had been worked on by a number of sculptors

that was lying in the workshops by the cathedral here in Florence.

And Michelangelo took up the challenge of working on this stone

and he chose the subject of David and said in his notebook,

just as David overcame his Goliath with a sling,

so Michelangelo will wrestle or overcome his giant in marble

with his hammer and his chisel.

And, in fact, what he does is he produces an image

of the biblical giant Slayer

who becomes a giant himself.

It was nicknamed Il Gigante.

It's over four metres tall.

And what we see is an image of a young adolescent.

He's languid in pose.

There's something almost, if not quite, limp-wristed about him.

And yet he's coiled and ready for action

and there's a steely resolve in the expression on his face.

It's an heroic celebration of the human form

and, in many ways, David perfectly encapsulates

the spirit of the Renaissance,

a fusion of classical ideals and the values of Christianity.

David made the arduous journey from the cathedral workshops

here to the Signorial Palace and he was pelted with stones,

first of all by a Pro-Medici faction

and then by a group of people of Christian moralisers

who decided that a large sculpture that showed a naked male body

was not appropriate for a prominent position.

And this is an incredibly prominent position,

just outside the seat of Florentine government.

And, in fact, there David stands like a guardian

to Florence and the government.

He stares south to Rome,

from which the greatest political, economic and cultural threat came.

And he remained there until the 19th century,

when he was deemed to be so important

he couldn't be exposed to the elements any more,

so a replica was put in his place.

And here it remains,

a symbol of Republican virtue, of Florence,

perhaps a symbol of mass tourism too,

and of flawless male beauty.

But, ultimately, the most universal symbol of artistic genius.

Work on the Marble David coincided

with an exceptionally busy period of creativity,

though much of it Michelangelo could never hope to finish.

It was a problem which would dog him for the rest of his career.

Sculpture was Michelangelo's great passion,

and he was often disparaging about painting.

Nonetheless, he had a supreme talent for it,

and it was lucrative.

And in 154, he was commissioned to do this work,

to commemorate the marriage of the offspring

of two major families in Florence,

the Strozzi and the Donny.

And this work is called the Donny Tondo.

Tondo means the circular format that Michelangelo's used,

which was common enough in late 15th century Florence,

but his handling of the subject matter of the Holy Family

is anything other than traditional.

The first thing we notice is the background.

What are these languid, sensuous, naked young men doing there?

Well, in some ways, I think,

there's essentially homoerotic charge going on there.

But also, Michelangelo is depicting a classical world,

a world divided by this threshold,

this odd marble block,

with the foreground, which is the Christian world.

And on the threshold of the two worlds

is the harbinger of Christ,

is John the Baptist,

with his little cross over his shoulder.

And then we get to the Holy Family themselves,

almost as if the three figures

have been hewn out of a giant block of marble,

but he puts flesh on them beautifully.

He also slightly subverts or skews

the traditional pyramidal format of the family.

So Joseph and Mary hold their slightly wriggling young son.

This is wonderfully graphic and real.

The son is almost pulling at his mother's hair,

making her eyes water.

And then we notice her body,

graceful but muscular,

slightly in parallel with the male figures behind.

But in the end,

everything is subsumed in an overall vision

that is all about the drama of painting itself.

And in a way,

he's setting out his stall

as a great experimental painter,

as well as sculptor.

Michelangelo's skills were put to the test in 15-5,

when he found himself in direct competition

with the leading painter of the day,

Leonardo da Vinci.

Both artists were commissioned by the Florentine government

to design fresco paintings for its state hall

in the Palazzo della Signoria.

Michelangelo's colossus, David,

already stood guard outside this venerable seat of power.

The murals were supposed to celebrate Florence's victories

over her rivals, Pisa and Milan.

In the Battle of Cassina,

Michelangelo shows his deep knowledge of the male anatomy.

It's a scene where bathing soldiers are caught unawares by the enemy

and hurriedly dressed for battle.

Neither Leonardo nor Michelangelo got round to finishing the murals,

but they did complete enormous preparatory drawings,

which were displayed.

These functioned for years afterwards as a kind of laboratory

where aspiring artists like the young Raphael,

or a little later, Rubens, came to study.

Michelangelo was once again summoned to Rome

by another even bigger commission.

The new pope, Julius II, wanted him to build his tomb.

It was a hugely ambitious project

which would consume the sculptor for the next four decades.

The initial design involved carving over 40 freestanding statues

on a monumental marble structure.

Fired up with enthusiasm,

Michelangelo set off to the mountains to select his stone.

He came to Carrara,

a quarry which had provided Europe

with the finest white marble since ancient times.

We know from records that Michelangelo was very particular,

quickly rejecting numerous blocks with floors.

He spent eight months in Carrara,

and it's not hard to imagine him here,

visualising sculptures waiting to be released from these rocks,

and dreaming of carving gigantic statues

out of the whole mountain.

In the winter of 156,

Michelangelo came back to Rome,

refreshed from Carrara,

and raring to get going on Julius II's tomb.

But in one of those legendary huffs in art history,

he was barred access from the papacy,

with the Vatican gates being closed on him for a week,

and he in turn went off to Florence in a sulk.

Letters were exchanged,

and eventually, when he returned to the city,

it wasn't the commission to carve the tomb that he was given.

This time, it was to paint the ceiling of a certain chapel in the Vatican,

called the Sistine.

In 1508, under flickering candlelight,

he began the monumental task of covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,

a surface of over 1,000 square metres,

and painting over 300 figures.

The image of him painting alone at the top of a scaffold lying on his back is pure myth.

Given the speed with which he completed the commission,

we know he must have used assistance.

The vision, though, is totally his own.

Michelangelo painted nine scenes from the book of Genesis,

beginning with the creation up to the time of Noah.

God is presented in the guise of a muscular Greek hero,

a classical sculpture brought to life,

who in turn brings life to the universe.

On each corner of the main scenes he painted,

there are small pedestals on which sits a single nude male figure.

These creations were completely innovative,

total products of the artist's imagination.

When the Sistine Chapel was opened four years later,

the Roman crowds flocked to see it.

The ceiling was unlike anything that had been done before.

The naturalness with which Michelangelo represented the human figures.

His brilliant use of perspective, which pulls the viewer upwards.

The sensual power of the naked bodies,

and the joyous, daring, iridescent colours.

All of which heralded a new type of heroic painting in Western art.

A year after the chapel was opened, Pope Julius II died,

but Michelangelo persevered with his plans for the papal tomb.

A new scheme was devised for a cut-down version.

Michelangelo worked on several figures for the tomb,

the most remarkable of which are these two,

now displayed in the Louvre in Paris.

The slaves, or captives, were symbols of the liberal arts

imprisoned after the death of Julius II.

The idea was that once he'd gone, the arts would suffer.

But there's so much more to these sculptures

than the symbolism of mere flattery.

This particular work, The Dying Slave,

is riddled with a wonderful sense of ambiguity

that gives the sculptor its energy.

For a start, Michelangelo conceived this work to go in a niche,

so we look at it frontly.

But in fact, it works fantastically as you walk round it too.

It's called The Dying Slave, but equally,

we could call it The Awakening Slave.

Look at that tautness as the figure stretches up.

It's as if the life is flowing into him,

as well as the life, perhaps, is about to drain out of him.

It's also a phenomenally sensual sculpture.

The look on the face is one of ecstasy.

Religious ecstasy for respectability,

but of course, at the same time, sexual ecstasy.

And this, it seems to me, is Michelangelo's

greatest sculptural celebration of male sexuality.

This is a much more erotic or homoerotic image than even David.

There's something else, though, too,

which I think is focused when you look at this rough area at the bottom

that, in fact, is an ape, hewn out of stone very coarsely.

You see its face, and there's a kind of joke going on here.

On one level, this is perhaps Beauty and the Beast.

On another level, it's the idea of sculpture trying to ape or copy nature.

But thirdly, and I think most crucially, it's about process.

The figure itself, so wonderfully finished with that kind of polish and sheen

that make it look like a real human being, seems to emerge out of this rough stone.

And it's the idea of Michelangelo back in Carrara, looking at blocks of marble.

And in his imagination, in his creative mind, he sees an image inside the marble.

And his job as a sculptor is to free or liberate that image.

Michelangelo was now very famous.

His work was increasingly sought after, even tiny sketches.

And consequently, he was rich and able to support his whole family.

Nonetheless, he was loath to refuse commissions,

and often had several jobs on the go at once.

He worked frantically, frequently complaining in letters to friends

of not having time to eat or even sleep.

One of the most magnificent projects he did manage to complete

was here, in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence.

The Medici chapel was commissioned by the new pope, Leo X,

as a tomb to glorify his own family.

The result is an incredibly designed monument,

showing Michelangelo's ability to fuse grandeur with intimacy.

But Michelangelo's relationship with the Medici went sour

when they realised he was a republican at heart.

Fearing for his life, he left Florence for good in 1534

and settled in Rome.

It was during this time that he wrote letters and poems

to the talented young aristocrat Tommaso de Cavalieri,

with whom it's thought he may have been in love.

He found it hard to reconcile his homosexuality with his love of God

and his deep desire for salvation in the next life.

And nowhere was he able to express this conflict more clearly

than in the final great work of his life.

He returned to the scene of his earlier triumph, the Sistine Chapel,

this time to paint the Last Judgment on the altar wall.

Michelangelo laboured relentlessly on the fresco from 1536 to 1541,

surviving a nasty fall from the scaffold and with his eyesight failing.

By any reckoning, it's an astonishing achievement,

but all the more so for being the work of a man well into his sixties.

As he'd done before, Michelangelo uses colour with great subtlety,

but the style of the painting is more brutal than the ceiling of the chapel.

Its mood is harsher and its impact is much more disturbing.

Christ isn't serenely enthroned at the centre.

He's a young, muscular man of action

surrounded by a naked, seething mass of humanity.

Many have seen the face of Michelangelo himself

in the flayed skin which St Bartholomew holds up.

And whilst there's no direct evidence to support this,

the image is strongly in keeping with the artist's growing and recorded terror

of the sins of the flesh, as well as his quest for salvation.

For the last 20 years of his life,

Michelangelo began to concentrate mainly on architectural projects,

developing the ideas he'd begun to explore in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence,

and exploring the relationship between architecture, sculpture and the human body.

The elements that make up the framework of a building, he wrote,

are akin to the limbs of a human body.

And appropriately enough, for a man so interested in monumental human figures,

in 1547, he was made chief architect of the biggest church in Christendom,

and for the remaining two decades of his life,

devoted his work to building the dome that still dominates the skyline of Rome.

Interestingly enough, he accepted no payment for his work on the Mother Church.

Instead, he saw it as a gift to God and to his church at the end of his life.

Although revered for most of his career, in his 70s,

Michelangelo began to feel the sharp edge of the critic's tongue.

He was accused by some of being a bad colourist.

It was hinted that his morality was dubious.

His naked saints from the Last Judgment were subjected to censorship.

An artist nicknamed the Breaches Maker

was instructed to paint over the genitalia of the nude figures with loincloths.

Michelangelo grew increasingly pious.

Old age had tempered his fascination with the nude figure.

And his later works showed that he was aiming for something more spiritual than earthly beauty.

In the last week of his life, aged 89,

he was working on a sculpture of the Virgin Mary mourning her dead son, another Pietà.

Shortly after ordering a great number of his drawings to be burned,

he died on the 18th of February, 1564.

By the end of his life,

Michelangelo seemed to have lost faith in his art,

yet enjoyed a greater fame than any artist before him.

In a way, though, he inspired a new kind of religion,

which flourished over the next few centuries.

Art itself.

Michelangelo,

whose devoted pilgrims still flocked to see the work of the painter,

sculptor and architect his peers called Divine.

.

We'll be right back.