Chapter 9 master and villain

one In front of Michelangelo's coffin in the Church of the Holy Cross, I think that there are specific signs of the beginning and end of any historical event. The sign of the ebb of the Renaissance movement should be the death of Michelangelo, right?Then this small coffin is a bit important. Michelangelo died in Rome at the age of eighty-nine.Compared with Da Vinci who died in his 60s and Raphael who died in his 30s, it is really a long life.There were some embarrassments in his relationship with the two of them, but that was far away. They both died more than forty years ago, and he alone suffered the infinite loneliness of lacking high-level friends and opponents for more than forty years.

I remember how glorious Da Vinci was when he returned to Florence after he had already painted "The Last Supper". The young and vigorous Michelangelo once publicly confronted him; Florence was paid 10,000 gold coins for painting murals in the State Council Hall, but he was paid 400 gold coins for carving "David".This kind of competition under the watchful eyes of the public often causes unpleasant things.For example, during this period, someone threw stones at the "David" placed on the square, which was immediately imagined as being instructed by Da Vinci, so that Da Vinci did not know how to clean it.

But a master is a master after all. Michelangelo just wanted to paint the mural of the competition from the manuscript to the wall, but was summoned to Rome by the Pope. He was deeply shocked in front of the remains of the murals left by Leonardo da Vinci, and only he could understand the rare greatness of all the brush strokes.Logically, at this time, he had the opportunity to complete the murals without competition, but since Da Vinci had already left, what was the point of painting by himself?He also stopped, so the two masters looked at each other from a distance with gentle eyes again, and instantly reconciled.

Raphael was eight years younger than Michelangelo and had a great admiration for the art of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.But he was a fellow villager and distant relative of Bramante, the famous architect who presided over the project of St. Peter's Basilica at that time. Kiro's psychological opponent.Michelangelo suspected that the Pope's insistence on him as a sculptor to paint a large-scale fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was probably a bad idea by Bramante and Raphael, with the purpose of embarrassing him.He refused others to visit when he was making this mural, but soon found that someone had come in at night. After checking, it was Bramante and Raphael again, which made him very annoyed.In fact, Raphael came to study piously. When Michelangelo finished the mural named "Genesis", Raphael stood in front of the mural and said sincerely: Michelangelo used a mural as outstanding as God. Genius, who created this century!

Bramante only presided over the project of St. Peter's Basilica for eight years and then died. Raphael succeeded him. Unfortunately, he died after working for six years at such a young age. The strange thing is that another architect just took over and passed away. Helpless, in the end, he had to ask the seventy-two-year-old Michelangelo to preside over the matter.Michelangelo felt that he was just a sculptor, and he had to become a painter because of Braman's special recommendation, but how could he become an architect again in such an old age, let alone the one who was going to take over from Bramante? Work!Therefore, he refused several times, but later he couldn't push it anymore, so he proposed to change Bramante's plan before considering it, and the Holy See actually agreed.However, when he examined Bramante's design plan over and over again with critical eyes, he had to exclaim: Whoever wants to deny such a brilliant plan must be a lunatic!This exclamation came from the artistic conscience.Sincere artists can be dissatisfied with each other, and they can hold grudges, but most of them are able to let go of their previous suspicions before they arrive at the work.This is not just the conquest of artistic skills, but a noble inner quality of life refined into an aesthetic form, building mutual confirmation.

two Michelangelo's distress in his later years was that he could no longer encounter this level of mutual confrontation and confirmation, and he was met by groups of what he called despicable rumormongers. From the letters he wrote to his nephew, it appears that he was tortured by them until the end of his life.Their names can still be found in historical materials.We sometimes think foolishly, why would an art master who is nearly ninety years old and well-known all over Europe care about these despicable rumormongers?After reading the information, I found out that these people had certain qualifications to speak at the time, and even had certain operational powers. However, it was difficult for the pope or the public to distinguish the content of the rumors for a while.Most vexing of these were the rumors about the project, which kept prophesying that the dome of the cathedral that Michelangelo was building had left so severe technical consequences that it was bound to collapse.This could not be verified at the time, but it could destroy the mood of the builder, and the project might be suspended in a fit of anger, and the suspension was exactly the purpose of the rumor makers, so that they could take over the dome themselves.

I happened to read these materials that day and went to attend a grand ceremony in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. Even the Pope came out, but my mind was always fixed on the dome under the blue sky, thinking about what Michelangelo had done hundreds of years ago. Inexplicable anger, so I silently said a sentence in my heart: Master, calm down, we only have your dome above our heads!In fact, Michelangelo encountered this kind of trouble when he completed his masterpiece "The Last Judgment".At that time, the master was nearly seventy years old, and suddenly found that this seemingly humble opponent was more dangerous than all the dangers he had experienced.

At that time, there was a Venetian satirist named Aretino, who made a living by doing two jobs at the same time. One was hired to write libelous articles and received commissions; sex essays. These two occupations are actually cultural killers. The first is a hired cultural killer, and the second is a retaliatory cultural killer, both for money.Of course there is also a jealous culture killer, which he is not yet in.But he was very powerful at that time, because a mural was painted for several years, and his essays were several a day, which was seriously unbalanced offensively and defensively; and because he regularly printed and distributed these two kinds of articles, as a result, almost all celebrities and artists He was very afraid of him, so he got a lot of money and other benefits smoothly.

This time he asked Michelangelo for a drawing, but failed, so he published an open letter, saying that Michelangelo took a large pile of gold from the Pope and did not draw something decent. end.Although Michelangelo was very angry, he ignored it. Aretino further accused the "Last Judgment" in the form of leaflets. Why do you care. Aretino tried his best to drag an artist into the dock of political trial and moral trial, even if he failed in the end, he disturbed the attention of society.Even the people who defended Michelangelo at that time did not realize that "The Last Judgment" had bid farewell to the classicism of the Renaissance in terms of characterization and composition.This is the result of the master spending a full six years of hard exploration day and night, who knows that it was covered by the foul noise as soon as it came out.

There are still many propositions that the master wants to explore. He always wants to start from a new starting line, but the slander of the Aretinos makes him have to painfully defend what he wanted to give up time and time again.How much he wanted to become a child again and continue to question the original meaning of art, but everything around him forced him to wear heavy armor and a thick mask.The social climate had failed to help him become an easy creator, which just showed that the tide of the Renaissance was beginning to ebb. On February 18, 1564, before his death, the master said to the cardinal standing in front of him: I have just begun to learn about art, but I am about to die.I'm about to create my own real work!In fact, he wanted to say this a long time ago, but only today, there is no Aretino by the bed.

The next sentence was unmistakable: he was going back to Florence. The only relative of the master is a nephew who is incompetent.The nephew hastily bundled the master's body into a cargo and transported it back to Florence from Rome to complete the will.