The Renaissance: The Medici Tombs By Michelangelo

Brought back from Classical times, the Renaissance age saw the return of more natural, realistic, and humanistic statues and figures. The return of natural figures in art began with the interest of human nature and the human experience. The uses of these more humanistic forms in art were varied; they can be seen in religious items to personalize the experience, statues of commemoration or incorporated in elaborate funerary art, which became popular during the Renaissance period in Italy, to honor those in great detail. The word Renaissance is defined as a period of rebirth: the Renaissance age was a rebirth of the Classical values, not only in the artistic traditions that were lost in the Medieval Period. In this paper I will compare similar

The Medici Tombs by Michelangelo are a great example of this, made from marble during 1520-1534 and installed by another artist, Vasari in 1545 . The figures for the Medici tombs represent the four times of day: night, day, dusk, and dawn; this is one of the few examples in art history where the intentions of the figures were specifically to compliment each other (Fig. 5, Fig.6). Michelangelo was given almost full artistic creativity when commissioned for the tombs, he decided for the tomb to have figures that represented the times of day. More commonly for the time, the funerary figures represented the Virtues, who were seen as the guardians of the dead . There is some belief that four more figures were to be added to the tombs as well, which may have added to the belief that there were to be two more tombs; the four figures were believed, if they were to have been completed, they would have represented the river-gods . Some historians argue that Michelangelo was originally tasked to complete four tombs for the Medici family, instead of the two that were created for Lorenzo di Piero de Midici the Duke of Urbino and Guilio di Lorenzo dei Medici the Duke of Nemours . Some critics believe that the theory for completing the four tombs for the Medici family can be backed up by the evidence that there are four figures of day and there is some evidence to suggest there would be four more figures for the river-gods, if

In the Medieval art artists relied heavily on elementary skills, they were dependent on the vertical and horizontal, it was extreme simplicity . The viewpoints of human body in art during the Classical period to the Medieval changed drastically; the body went from being seen as beautiful to the body being seen as corrupt . This is obvious is many works attempting the human form in the Medieval era, particularly the Gero Crucifix, on painted and gilded wood from 970 (Fig. 11). Gero of Cologne commissioned this life size version of the crucifixion of Jesus; it is the oldest sculpture of the crucifixion from north of the Alps. Jesus is lacking in realistic qualities; this can be seen in the straight, linear fall of the drapery and the highly exaggerated, emaciated limbs, along with his limp, immovable hands. The full intent of the Gero Crucifix was to show the agony and suffering of Christ’s death . All of these are lacking any implied movements and are very unrealistic in what would be imagined the actual scene of crucifixion. The understanding of the human form is transformed and better understood again in the Italian Renaissance, as evident in David by Donatello, made between 1446-1460 in bronze (Fig. 12). It’s very obvious that Donatello has studied and been inspired by the Classical statues of David, there is a mixture of the classical style with