ART

The Creation of Adam The Creation of Adam is a fresco of Michelangelo Buonarroti , dating back to 1511 or so and part of the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel , the Vatican Museums in Rome , commissioned by Julius II . It is the episode's most famous icons of the Sistine Chapel and one of the most famous and celebrated of universal art, the subject of numerous quotations, homages and parodies, comparable only to the Mona Lisa of Leonardo .In painting the ceiling, Michelangelo proceeded from the bays near the front door, the one used during the solemn entrance into the chapel of the pope and his entourage, to span over the altar. In the middle of the work, in 1510 , the scaffolding was dismantled in the first half of the chapel and rebuilt, by the autumn of 1511, the other half. The Creation of Adam is thus part of the first phase of the second block. In these scenes we see that the figures also became larger and more monumental, more concise composition with an apparatus, the most fundamental and peremptory gesture. For the fresco were required sixteen "days" of fresco, from the group Eternal and angels, for which the design of the cartoon was transferred with the dusting , but the tunic, the subject of direct incisions. Adam, whose figure was carefully studied, but was reported directly on the plaster with the single incision. Received unanimous praise from the scene since the scopritura. The contemporary artist, in particular, I read the materialization of one of the highest ideals of the Renaissance culture, that of human dignity, mirror "image and likeness" of God's beauty of the human body was seen as a direct offshoot of spiritual faculties, and as the highest point of the divine creation. Vasari wrote: "[In] the creation of Adam, [Michelangelo ...] has figured God brought by a group of angels naked, and of tender age, which seems to sostenghino not just a figure, but the whole weight of the world, apparently by the venerable majesty of what [God] and the manner of motion, in which one arm cigne some children, as if he supports, and the other holds out his right hand in an Adam, a figurative beauty, attitude and its quality and 'seems made again by the first and supreme creator as soon as the brush and the drawing of a man " .

Self-Portrait The work is probably the one mentioned in "Note de 'good pictures of Urbino" in the Marche town purchased by Cardinal Leopoldo de 'Medici and already in Rome , in the ' Accademia di San Luca , where he had brought Federico Zuccaro . According to other sources would come instead from the estate of Vittoria della Rovere , the wife of Ferdinand II de 'Medici . In 1652 the work was summoned to the Palazzo Pitti in the chamber and the Grand Duchess in 1663 in the collection of portraits of Cardinal Leopold. The work has often raised doubts sull'autografia, even for the poor state of preservation. Today the father of Raphael is generally accepted, albeit with due reservations. Some date it to the full stay in Florence, others to a later period, as the autograph manuscript of the self or partially visible in the School of Athens in the Vatican . A second portrait, pose and appearance very similar to that of the Uffizi, was identified among the holders of the chair on which it runs gestatorial Julius II in the fresco of the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the temple .

The Birth of Venus It dates back to a time immediately following one of the most famous works of the artist and the Italian Renaissance in general, the Birth of Venus , dates, such as Spring , over which runs from 1477 to 1485 approximately. The latest theories make the two virtually contemporaneous works, although it is unlikely that Botticelli understood the two figurative paintings by the same program, with the differences in technique and style. Contrary to the Primavera , the Birth of Venus is not mentioned in Medici inventories of 1498 , 1503 and 1516 , but always through the testimony of Vasari in Lives know who was in the Villa di Castello in 1550 , when he saw the two works displayed together in country residence of the cadet branch of the family. As regards interpretation, the scene would be the time just preceding the Spring (the settlement of Venus in the Garden of Love), namely the landing after birth from the foam of the sea to the shores of ' Island of Cyprus , driven by the union of the winds Zephyr and Aura , and met by one of the hours that is drafting a rich cloak woven of flowers upon . Many historians seem to agree on the close bond between the paint and a step of the rooms of Politian : the almost complete coincidence between the story and the painting confirms that this is an illustration of the poem on the neo-Platonic philosopher, with the implicit references to the ideals on 'love that characterized this current of thought . The Birth of Venus would therefore be the coming forth of the ' Humanitas , understood as an allegory of love as the driving force of Nature. The figure of the goddess, represented in the pose of Venus pudica (ie while covering her nakedness with her hands and her long blonde hair), is the personification of the celestial Venus , symbol of purity, simplicity and unadorned beauty of the soul. This is one of the key Neoplatonic humanism, which returns under different aspects in two other paintings by Botticelli made around the same time: the Pallas and the Centaur , and Venus and Mars . The composition is extremely balanced and symmetrical, the design is based on the games that create decorative elegant lines sinuous and graceful. In any case the attention to the design is never solved in purely decorative effects, but maintains a connection to the volume and the true yield of the various materials, especially in lightweight garments . The light color and crisp, derived from the particular technique that imitates the fresco, light saturates the figures, making it stand out the purity of penetrating beauty. Even more than in the Spring , the background is flat space, blocking the figures in a magic sleep. The progressive loss of perspective values makes this place after the Spring , at a time when the "crisis" that will invest Florence at the end of the century, is already more than ever launched .

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