TTC VIDEO - Genius of Michelangelo by William E. Wallace

TTC VIDEO - Genius of Michelangelo by William E. Wallace



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Genius of Michelangelo
(36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 7130
Taught by [William E. Wallace
Washington University in St. Louis
Ph.D., Columbia University



Is there anything more that can be said about Michelangelo?

* Universally recognized as one of the dominant masters of art for all time, he achieved fame and wealth in his lifetime, and his genius is apparent in every medium he worked, and with every tool he used: chisel, brush, draftsman\'s pen, and chalks.
* Forgoing the traditional paths of artistic training, his achievements seem unimaginable. More than 500 years after his unique artistry burst forth on a stunned world, not even the sculptural marvels of the Pietà, the David, or the Moses; or the astonishing frescos of the Sistine Chapel; or the transformative architectural feats of which Rome\'s Campidoglio is but a hint begin to encompass his full legacy.
* Living twice as long as most of his contemporaries, his career spanned the glories of Renaissance Florence, the discovery of the New World, both the Reformation and the first stirrings of the Counter-Reformation, and the pontificates of 13 popes. And in working for nine of those pontiffs, often on projects of near-demonic difficulty, this deeply religious man created many of the iconic images of the Christian faith—agonizing until his own death whether he had done enough to earn salvation.

The breadth of his achievements confounds our attempts to grasp their full importance. But history has served us well—few artists have been so well documented.

In addition to his sculpture, paintings, and architecture, we also have a vast trove of his poetry—yes, he was accomplished in that art, too—drawings, and correspondence:

* Three hundred poems
* Six hundred drawings
* Nearly 1,400 letters he sent and received
* More than 300 pages of personal and professional records
* The correspondence of his immediate family
* The output of generations of scholars, including two contemporary biographers.


An Expanding Portrait of Truth and Legend

With all of this before us, it is no wonder that Michelangelo Buonarroti—with the exception of only Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and Beethoven—has inspired more scholarly and popular attention than any other artist. That attention continues to produce an ever-expanding portrait blended by truth and legend.

So the question indeed bears repeating: Is there truly anything more to be said about Michelangelo?

Surprisingly, the answer is \"Yes.\" The 36 lectures of The Genius of Michelangelo present a substantially new view—a fresh and insightful perspective offered by an internationally recognized Michelangelo expert, Professor William E. Wallace.

Professor Wallace has published four books about Michelangelo—one of which received the prestigious Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in the Humanities—and has completed a forthcoming biography of the artist. He has been the principal consultant on a two-part BBC documentary, The Divine Michelangelo. His expertise has received the acknowledgment of the Vatican itself, which invited him to Rome to join a select group of scholars, curators, and conservators from around the world and confer about the delicate conservation of Michelangelo\'s precious frescos.

Professor Wallace is an extraordinary teacher, as well—the winner of the Governor\'s Award for Excellence in Teaching, given by Missouri\'s Coordinating Board for Higher Education.

Professor Wallace puts those teaching skills on display throughout these lectures, which feature more than 900 visuals, including stunning reproductions of the master\'s sculptures, paintings, and architecture, as well as rough sketches, preparatory drawings, and photographs of the places he lived and worked.

Drawing on a vast command of artistic knowledge, period detail, and Michelangelo\'s day-to-day working life, he takes you from the marble-dust-laden air of the artist\'s studio to the inner sanctum of the Vatican itself—introducing you to a man even the most fervent Michelangelo fan has likely never encountered, revealing him as both artist and aristocrat.


Discover a Michelangelo You\'ve Never Encountered

The insightful new analysis Professor Wallace offers is a groundbreaking perspective unavailable in any other course. It\'s a perspective that makes The Genius of Michelangelo a must-have educational and artistic experience, whether you are already a Michelangelo aficionado, eager to enhance your present knowledge, or are someone new to his work, looking to create a firm foundation for further exploration.

Guiding you chronologically through Michelangelo\'s personal life, work, and the times that changed so dramatically over his long life, Professor Wallace shows how Michelangelo\'s belief in his patrician origins helped fuel his desire to improve his family\'s financial situation and to raise his social standing as an artist.

And as you follow that rise—\"from craftsman to genius, from artisan to gentleman\"—you\'ll learn to separate fact from legend and penetrate the myth that has long hampered a complete understanding of Michelangelo.

That legend and myth are most evident in discussing the frescos of the Sistine Chapel. The man who considered himself first and foremost a sculptor was destined to paint the frescos that became the images of western Christianity for all time—in the visualizations of the book of Genesis on the ceiling, and the Last Judgment on the altar wall two decades later.


\"I am in a bad place, and I am no painter.\"

Yet the chapel frescos were more than just an act of faith (and, in the case of the ceiling, of penance for offending the pope) by a deeply religious man. They were also a profound technical achievement in a situation fraught with difficulties, especially because of the chapel\'s vaulted ceiling. Michelangelo would attest to those difficulties when he noted in a sonnet, \"I am in a bad place, and I am no painter.\"

Explaining how Michelangelo was able to overcome that \"bad place\" and erase any doubts about his abilities as a painter, Professor Wallace adds sizable impact to his description of what it is like to enter the chapel and see the breathtaking frescos.

But understanding what went into the masterpieces also provides a shudder. Professor Wallace notes the chilling proposal put forth during the short reign of Pope Adrian VI, when it was recommended that the chapel be destroyed because of its ornate decoration, which some considered \"inappropriate\" for a papal chapel. The proposal was abandoned when Adrian died less than two years later.

But if contemplating a world of art without Michelangelo\'s frescos is chilling, contemplating that world without Michelangelo himself is even more so. Yet that almost happened, as well, when Michelangelo, personally supervising the quarrying of marble for the never-to-be-completed Medici church of San Lorenzo, narrowly escaped being crushed when an iron ring snapped and a massive block of marble slid down the hillside.

It would have been an ironic death for this artist whose mastery of marble was by itself worthy of immortality: his great genius able to create both the Pietà—carved from a block of marble so perfect that its like has never been equaled—and the David, made from a brittle block that had languished for 40 years, challenging and then abandoned by at least three sculptors.

When the David, originally intended as a buttress for the Florentine Cathedral, was completed, its magnificence compelled the civic government to appropriate it and place it at Florence\'s very heart, the Piazza della Signoria.

Shifting the statue from its expected religious context was, according to Professor Wallace, perhaps \"the beginning of our modern conception of art,\" with a work\'s meaning and interpretation open-ended, and \"an increasing burden of responsibility placed on the beholder.\"

The event also oddly foreshadowed what would happen when the great artist died at his home in Rome six decades later.

Unable to conceive its favorite son being laid to rest anywhere else, the Florentines appropriated his body, as well, hiding it beneath a packing of straw to bring it home.

Michelangelo rests today in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce. His tomb is partly fashioned from marble taken from his Florentine studio and sits directly across from the tomb of Galileo, who had maintained he was born on the day Michelangelo died—perhaps seeking to portray himself as a new receptacle for the spirit of genius now left without an earthly body.

The Genius of Michelangelo will enrich your appreciation not only Michelangelo\'s art but of all art. It will enhance your understanding of Michelangelo\'s beautiful works, his impact on the artists who followed, on the evolving stature of artists, and on the many ways art itself is now understood.


Should I Buy Audio or Video?

Because of the visual nature of the subject matter, this course is available only on DVD. It holds 900 images of paintings, architecture, sculptures, people, places, and, in addition, live footage.



About the Professor


William E. Wallace
Washington University in St. Louis
Ph.D., Columbia University

William E. Wallace has taught in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis since 1983. He received his B.A. from Dickinson College, his M.A. from the University of Illinois, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

He has written more than 80 essays on Renaissance art and four books on Michelangelo, including Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur; Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English; and Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, which was awarded the 1999 Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in the Humanities. He recently completed a scholarly biography of Michelangelo.

Professor Wallace has received numerous awards and fellowships, including stays at the Villa I Tatti (Harvard University’s Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence) and the American Academy in Rome. In 1990 Professor Wallace was invited to the Vatican to confer about the conservation of Michelangelo\'s frescos in the Sistine Chapel. He appeared in a BBC film, The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Michelangelo\'s David, and served as the principal consultant for the BBC film, The Divine Michelangelo.



Course Lecture Titles

1. Who Was Michelangelo?
2. Artist and Aristocrat—Michelangelo\'s World
3. An Unconventional Beginning
4. Michelangelo\'s Youth and Early Training
5. Florence and Bologna in the Early 1490s
6. First Visit to Rome and Early Patrons
7. The Bacchus and the Pietà
8. The Return to Florence and the David
9. The David and the St. Matthew
10. For the Republic—The Battle of Cascina
11. The Taddei Tondo and the Pitti Tondo
12. The Doni Tondo
13. Rome and the Tomb of Julius II
14. Bologna and the Return to Rome
15. The Sistine Chapel
16. The Sistine Chapel, Part 2
17. The Sistine Chapel, Part 3
18. A Story of Marble
19. The Medici Chapel Sculpture
20. The Medici Chapel Sculpture, Part 2
21. The Medici Chapel Sculpture, Part 3
22. The Laurentian Library
23. Florence—A Republic under Siege, 1527–34
24. Inventing a New Aesthetic—The Non-Finito
25. Michelangelo\'s Drawings, 1520–40
26. The Last Judgment
27. The Last Judgment, Part 2
28. The Pauline Chapel
29. The Completion of the Julius Tomb; Poetry
30. The Capitoline Hill Projects; the Brutus
31. The New St. Peter\'s Basilica
32. Michelangelo\'s Roman Architecture
33. Michelangelo\'s Roman Architecture, Part 2
34. Piety and Pity—The Florentine Pietà
35. The Rondanini Pietà and the Late Poetry
36. Death of Michelangelo—The Master\'s Legacy