Michelangelo and Da Vinci

1. I selected the videos “The Drawings of Michelangelo” and “Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance” because I was most familiar with those two artists. I have seen the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and I someday hope to stand in the Sistine Chapel.

2. The video about Michelangelo mostly focused on how his works came to be. Shown were many “works in progress” and even some of his sketches that ended up on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. His works are all very detailed and were realistic looking. For 60 years his focus of expression was male nudes and he created images of future body builders, whether they were sketches or sculptures. The video explained many of the ideas behind his paintings and went into great depth about his religious ones such as his Jesus on the cross. The video showed that much of his work of male nudes was idealistic and he would create many versions of a pose to try to make it look just perfect. The video also revealed that some of his work resembled Ghirlandaio’s work, but he rejected any ideas of this assumption being truthful. The video about Leonardo da Vinci showed how many of his works were personal and knowledgeable, and planned out in a logical way; similar to many artists of the Renaissance. He was not only an artist, but also a mathematician and an engineer. He was keen on his abilities and inventions and would introduce himself as an engineer. He worked for the Medici family and there was some writing found that shows some homosexual tendencies he may have had. He was a perfectionist and never considered his works to be done. Geometry played a big role in his pieces of art and he often mixed art with engineering to create new inventions.  

3. The text went over many artists and explained many of those artists work, including Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The videos were much more in depth about the two artist’s lives and journeys of being artists and dissected many of their paintings. The book spoke more of the time periods as a whole and how art developed over time. It also spoke of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter reformation and how religion was also changing with the times; or at least what people chose to believe in. The videos just focused in very closely on small parts of the text, but did incorporate some talk of the time periods.

4. I liked the Michelangelo film. I thought it was informative on his life and kept to the point for the most part. I thought the video about Da Vinci was lacking. It was hard to follow because it moved so slowly and there were many points where only music was playing for any number of seconds. They explained some of what was in the reading in more detail, but for the reading as a whole, they did not connect as well in my mind. The videos did, however, go through many of the reasons work of the renaissance was created and how and added depth to what the work meant.