fame 4.3 Michelangelo Buonarroti “Delphic Sybil” • Gregorian Chant

(Put materials on desks before beginning the lesson. After lesson use process board and outline for project.)

Welcome to our third FAME lesson for this year. In the first lesson we talked about artist William Harnett and his

painting My Gems. Do you remember what style of painting he was known for? Realism, a style of painting that

recreates the way objects and people look in real life. For a bonus, do you remember the fancy French word that

means “fool or trick the eye”? Trompe l’oeil. In our second lesson, we learned about Renoir, an Impressionist

whose painting Le Bal du Moulin de La Galette gives us the impression of the lively outdoor party scene.

The artist we will introduce today, Michelangelo (mick-el-AN-jel-oh)

Buonarotti (1475-1564), thought of himself as a sculptor more than a painter.

What does it mean to be a sculptor? You create art that you can see from all

sides rather than a painting which is flat and can only be seen from the front. To

make his sculptures, Michelangelo carved them from blocks of marble, a type of

stone. Can you imagine using nothing more than a hammer and chisel to

create art from a stone? When Michelangelo described his art he said, “Every

block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover

it.” You can share the photos of the Pietà, his sculptural masterpiece at 24—

carved from a single slab of Carrara marble. It is his only signed work.

Michelangelo, an artistic genius who sculpted, painted and wrote poetry lived

and worked in Italy during the Renaissance. During this time period art and

learning were celebrated and artists discovered how to use science and math to

paint people, buildings and landscapes in perspective. Because Michelangelo

was such a famous sculptor, he was asked by the Pope to take on a really

difficult project: to paint the ceiling of a special church, The Sistine Chapel.

He had not painted since he was a student and had to learn all of the new

techniques for using perspective to make the ceiling look realistic from 60 feet below. By using perspective,

Michelangelo was able to make his paintings look like sculpture. For older students add detail from text box and

binder or provide demonstration.

OBJECTIVE: Introduction to how

Renaissance artist

Michelangelo used

perspective to give the

painted Sistine Chapel

ceiling sculptural effects.

Introdcution to a capella

and Gregorian Chants.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Michelangelo

INTRODUCTION:

4.1: Harnett My

Gems, REALISM

4.2 Renoir, Le Bal

du Moulin,

IMPRESSIONISM

ARTIST: Michelangelo

Buonarotti (1475-1564)

Italian High

Renaissance

Considered himself

a sculptor

Use of science and

math to achieve

PERSPECTIVE

Used PERSPECTIVE

to make paintings

look like sculptures

Vocabulary: PERSPECTIVE

Perspective is a system for representing 3-

dimensional space on a flat surface, based

on the way our eyes see. When objects

get further away they appear smaller.

If you follow the angle lines of the columns

and decorations they will all meet at a

single point, called the vanishing point. It

is that spot on the horizon line to which

the receding parallel lines diminish. As

things get further away, from us, they

seem smaller and closer together.

Artists use this and techniques like

foreshortening in a flat painting so figures

appear to project out of the wall as a

sculpture would.

Sculpture uses the art elements that we study in a painting but in a little different way. In painting, can you see a

LINE when you stand in front of it? yes. If I show you the back of it, can you still see it? No. With a sculpture, you

can follow the 3 dimensional curves, or LINES from all sides, all the way around.

Let’s look closely at one of the figures from the ceiling: The Delphic Sibyl. Sibyl means that the woman could tell

what would happen in the future, like a fortune teller, and Delphic means that she came from the city of Delphi in

ancient Greece. She is both graceful and powerful with a harmony of proportion. Her elbow and knee appear to

extend from the ceiling appearing more sculpture than painting. The overall circular composition of her body

echoes the contours of the painted architectural setting—it is difficult to tell what is painted and what is real!

Michelangelo built special scaffolds and used long handled brushes while

tilting his head back to reach straight up and paint. You can demonstrate

this posture and ask the students to try holding up their hands over their

heads while you ask the following questions: How long do you think he

spent working on this project? Do you think you would get tired of doing

this after 4 minutes? How about 4 hours? Maybe 4 days? He worked on

the Sistine chapel for 4 years!

The ceiling took so long because The Delphic Sybil was one of only

nearly 300 figures he painted on the ceiling! He was commissioned to

paint 12 Apostles on the ceiling, but Michelangelo thought that would be

a “poor affair” and ended up painting nearly 300 figures on over 5800

square feet. It was his belief that “the greater danger for most of us lies

not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim

too low, and achieving our mark.” He painted the history of the creation

of the world through religious stories. Use binder or weblinks to show full

scale and map of ceiling. But the stories he brings to life are for everyone:

they are about darkness and light, good and evil, creation and

destruction. Photographs cannot communicate the power of the painting.

It is overwhelming, huge, energetic and brilliant and the figures seem to

spring out of the ceiling with such force that you want to cover your head so they don’t come crashing down on

you!

Just as Michelangelo “took away” stone to reveal the sculpture inside, you will have an opportunity to be a

sculptor and chip away at your block. Today, rather than marble, you will use soap for a very unique FAME project.

This will help you understand the process of sculpting as well as provide something special to take home. Let’s get

started!

While we work we will listen to a meditative kind of music, Gregorian Chants. Add any details from box above.

ART ELEMENT: LINE in

sculpture becomes 3

dimensional

ART: The Delphic Sibyl

from the Sistine Chapel

Ceiling Fresco

Seer from city of

Delphi

Appears like

sculpture

Sistine Chapel Ceiling:

Took 4 years to

complete

Painted standing

with arms reaching

and head tilted

back

Michelangelo

rejected 12 figure

proposal and

created almost 300

Art Project: Blocks of soap

to “chip away” sculpture

GREGORIAN CHANTS

600AD, DARK AGES

FEW COULD READ/WRITE

CHANTS USED TO TEACH PEOPLE

ABOUT RELIGION

FIRST MUSIC TO BE WRITTEN

DOWN

SUNG IN LATIN

NO RHYTHM, HARMONY,

DYNAMICS ONLY SIMPLE MELODY

SUNG A CAPELLA: NO MUSICAL

INSTRUMENTS

ALL SUNG TOGETHER AS “ONE

VOICE”

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