The drawing above is a copy of a work entitled ‘Standing Male Back Nude’ by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The original is housed in the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Michelangelo’s drawing was done in brown pen over black chalk. I drew mine in graphite pencil over another layer of graphite pencil. I have copied drawings from Michelangelo before and perhaps I’ve even talked about him. But I mean it is Michelangelo, so I guess we can always talk about him some more.
The following information comes from Wikipedia. Actually, the German version of Wikipedia that was then translated into English using the built-in translator feature on my browser. I guess I could just go to the English version of Wikipedia or translate the Italian Wikipedia page but this method is more fun and exciting and if you’ve read the rest of my blogs you will see that fun and exciting and me go hand in hand. Moving on, the German wikipedia page says Michelangelo came from a middle class family in Florence, Italy and that their family was distinguished. The family was distinguished, not Florence. Although you could say the city of Florence is quite distinguished. But the article states that his family was distinguished. However, it doesn’t say what exactly makes the family distinguished. It does say his father worked for a year as a city bailiff in Caprese. So I guess that is enough to make a family distinguishing.
Michelangelo had always wanted to become an artist even though his father was against it. When he was thirteen he convinced his father to let him study art. So he became an apprentice in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio where he learned to paint on fresco. So let’s get this straight, Michelangelo knew as a child what he wanted to do the rest of his life. And not only that, he was also able at the age of 13 to convince his father to let him do it. I’m going to let that sink in and call it a day. More to come later…