An incisive study of the shaping influences on Michelangelo's creative and personal life: his father, Lodovico Buonarroti; his first patron, Lorenzo di Medici; and his greatest patron, Pope Julius II. Michelangelo Buonarroti was an unparalleled artist-painter, sculptor, architect, poet-who was regarded even in his own lifetime as divine. Here James Beck reveals how Michelangelo's interactions with three men determined his path from early childhood to the completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. His father, Lodovico, a stern man, instilled a powerful work ethic in Michelangelo, yet his criticism of his son's artistic calling left his son deprived of approval and love. Lorenzo di Medici, the forceful ruler of Florence, took the teenaged Michelangelo under his wing, raising him almost like one of his own sons in the artists' colony he established on his palace grounds. Already one of the most respected sculptors in the world and still in young manhood, Michelangelo was then sought out by Pope Julius II. Although Julius originally commissioned him to create his tomb, the artist's greatest project under his patronage was the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican. Rich in unusual details such as an unprecedented account of the sculpting of David, Michelangelo's most famous work, and the creation of the Sistine ceiling, Three Worlds of Michelangelo presents Michelangelo in fresh and vivid terms.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Few artists in the history of the world have attained the mythic status of Michelangelo--painter of the heavenly Sistine Chapel and sculptor of the nearly divine David. And it is his towering presence that makes it so difficult to imagine the artist as a man. Art historian James Beck helps unlock the mystery of Michelangelo by opening the doors of the three very different worlds to which he belonged. Michelangelo's father, his famous and influential patron Lorenzo de Medici, and Pope Julius II who, according to Beck, forced the Sistine Chapel commission onto its now-famous painter, divided the rule of these worlds between them and held powerful sway over the artist. Michelangelo left behind a fair amount of correspondence, upon which Beck heavily relies. But beyond that, there is a dearth of reliable information about the subject. Michelangelo himself carefully oversaw the contemporary biographies--selling 16th-century writers on the notion that he was divinely preordained to become a renowned artist. Beck is clearly a careful researcher and he skillfully combines the facts at hand and collateral information about the era to recreate the artist's world. He freely draws on this information to form opinions about his subject's sexuality, passion for his art, and relationships to the powerful men in his life. He evokes, too, a strong visual sense of Michelangelo's environment--the Medici palace where he lived for a time, the Vatican of the Renaissance, the artist's own work. This is definitely a compelling story, but bear in mind that because of the distinct lack of reliable source material, this biography falls somewhere between fact and well-informed historical fiction.
From Publishers Weekly
This anemic treatment of Michelangelo Buonarroti's early career aspires to "reach the quality that lies behind both his life and his work?his humanity," in order to counterbalance the epithet "divine" that has been his since the Renaissance. Beck (coauthor of Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business and the Scandal), a Columbia University art historian, identifies three strong father figures who, Beck writes, served as distinctive "epicenters" for Michelangelo's surging creativity: Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto leader of Florence who encouraged the artist during his adolescence; Lodovico Buonarroti, his biological father, whose querulous influence increased markedly with Lorenzo's death in 1492; and Pope Julius II, his greatest patron. However, Beck fails to exploit this promising analytical framework, instead proceeding in a ploddingly chronological fashion. Rather than bringing the artist's multiple "worlds" into useful focus, or demonstrating how the three men informed his work (beyond the tender family scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), Beck sets out to debunk stock theories about Michelangelo: his terribilita (terrible disposition), his homosexuality, his aesthetic leaning toward the non finito (unfinished) and the conceptual grouping of the central Sistine narratives (opposing the conventional three groups of three, Beck contends for a four-one-four arrangement, a point hardly relevant to the lay reader). Granted, Beck offers some wonderful anecdotes, and his account of a meeting held on January 25, 1504 to discuss the placement of Michelangelo's 13-foot David is nothing short of thrilling, as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Perugino, Filipino Lippi, Piero di Cosimo and everyone else of consequence in the Florentine art world all weighed in on the subject of their fellow artist's greatest triumph. Ultimately, this is a frustrating book with some very engaging passages. B&w illustrations.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Divine Mr. M,
By
This review is from: Three Worlds of Michelangelo (Hardcover)
To start off, I can't believe this book is out of print already! I'd still like to write a review, because this is a very good book and perhaps the publisher will do a new hardcover print run or come up with a paperback edition..... Mr. Beck is a professor of art history at Columbia University in New York City. One of the nice things about this book, though, is that it is written for the layperson. It is not full of technical terms and art world jargon. Even better, it is well written. Professor Beck has a very good style of writing so the book flows along very smoothly. I think the author's intention was to balance out the popular picture of Michelangelo as a tortured, ill-mannered genius. Professor Beck shows him to be, in some respects, a pretty regular fellow. For example, we find out that Pope Julius appreciated him for his ironic, sarcastic and apparently typically Tuscan sense of humor. Michelangelo also was always very much a person concerned with the well-being of his family. Although he never married and never had any children he was deeply attached to his father and his brothers. Once he started to earn some money he was always very good about helping his family financially. One of the strong suits of this book is that Professor Beck constantly shows us the humanity behind the artist. Although Michelangelo loved his father it is also true that his father never approved of his choice of career. An artist was not highly regarded back in those days and when Michelangelo decided to become a sculptor, well, that was even worse. Imagine going around with your clothes full of marble dust all the time! Michelangelo was always looking for approval from his father and he never got it. The book also covers Michelangelo's relationship with Lorenzo The Magnificent and Pope Julius II. We get an especially nicely rounded portrait of Julius as a warrior pope who was more interested in power and politics and women than in culture, but who nevertheless appreciated the talent of Michelangelo. He also had a fierce temper and when Michelangelo answered the question, "When will the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel be finished?" with "It'll be done when it is done..." threatened to have some lackeys go up and have Michelangelo thrown off of the scaffolding! My only complaint with this book is that perhaps Professor Beck goes a little too far trying to portray Michelangelo as a "nice" guy and basically somebody that really had no faults whatsoever. But as I wrote near the start of this review I think the intent was to try to swing the pendulum the other way..... Still, this book is very good and well worth reading.
8 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
very informative look at artists life,
By A Customer
This review is from: Three Worlds of Michelangelo (Hardcover)
James Beck has written a wonderful and easy read about the life of Michelangelo. By not focusing on details about Michelangelo's sex life, Beck has put a much needed focus back on the actual art work of the artist. Regardless of whether he was gay or straight, Michelangelo is a gifted and talented artist who will be remembered for eternity.
9 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spoiled by homophobia,
This review is from: Three Worlds of Michelangelo (Hardcover)
This biography might have been wonderful to me if it had not been spoiled by the author's foolish attempts to cast doubt on Michelangelo's homosexuality. This puts Beck into the same category with Irving Stone and Charlton Heston in The Agony and the Ecstasy. On the verge of the 21st Century to get yet another book denying that there were any great gay men in history is simply not acceptable.
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