Master of sculpture and fresco, of David and the Sistine ceiling
The most powerful artist of the Renaissance, who thought of himself as a sculptor yet was forced by the Pope to paint, neck craned upward, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The bodies under his brush and chisel bulge with muscle and heroic force, as if about to tear free of the stone or the wall. His David stood a discarded block of marble up into the summit of the ideal human form, and the ceiling’s Genesis painted the Bible’s opening as a symphony of bodies.
Pope Julius II ordered Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He resisted — he felt he was a sculptor, not a painter. But once he began, he raised scaffolding, craned his neck, paint dripping into his eyes, and painted for a full four years, completing over three hundred figures alone. When it was done his neck could barely straighten again, but he had left the world the most magnificent ceiling in the history of art.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.