Part II. 2. In 1513 Michelangelo started work on a new version of Julius's sepulcher which was much more modest in design

2. In 1513 Michelangelo started work on a new version of Julius's sepulcher which was much more modest in design. One of the main figures to decorate the tomb was to be a statue of the biblical prophet Moses.

3. The sculptor depicted Moses when he was beside himself with rage having witnessed his people breaking the laws. Michelangelo's Moses is a man of great
strength of character and turbulent emotions.

4. Moreover Michelangelo made two sculptures of Captives (or Slaves) for the tomb of Julius II. The subject of the sculp­ture is a captive in chains, the unequal heroic battle of Man against hostile forces.

5. Michelangelo's statues can't be fully appreciated when seen from any single vantage point. Only when viewing The Captive in Chains from every side can the observer make out the various shades of emotion expressed in this image — from heroic inspiration to black despair.

6. The sculpture called The Dying Captive represents a hero perishing in the struggle for his liberation.

7. Here is a fragment of The Dying Captive.

8. This is one of the unfinished Captives meant for the tomb of Julius II. It gives us an insight into Michelangelo's creative method. He seemed to have had a picture in his mind's eye of what the statue would be like when ready even when he first looked at the block of marble and it is obvious that for him the process of creation was liberating the sculpture as it were from the marble. Atlantus.

9. The Bearded Captive. In this statue the human form is an indivisible part of the marble block and fills italmost entirely.

10. In 1527 Florence rose against the tyranny of the Medici rulers and was proclaimed a Republic once more. For eleven months the heroic defenders of the town withstood the pressure of the Allied forces of Spain and of the Pope of Rome. Taking an active part in the heroic struggle Michelangelo became engineer-in-chief of the fortifications.

11. The fall of Florence and Spain's seizure of the greater part of Italy was a hard blow for Michelangelo. His life threatened, he was forced to go on working on the Medici Chapel, a monumental sepulchre of the dynasty he hated. Thus a motif of tragic despair began to develop in his work.

12. Two of the walls of the Chapel are occupied by the tombs of Lorenzo and Juliano Medici. By the third wall stands a statue of the Madonna and two apostles.

13. Each tomb of the Medici Chapel is a combination of an architectural composition with a sculptured figure. By the tomb of Lorenzo Medici a statue of the deceased occupies a narrow niche. Under the niche on the sarcophagus the figures Morning and Evening were placed to symbolize fast-fleeting time.

14. The sculptor put the figures Day and Night upon the sarcophagus of Juliano Medici.

15. Michelangelo treated the portraits not realistically but typically not having made any attempt to convey a likeness.

16. Juliano Medici.

17. The allegoric figures are seething with an inner unrests. Morning is personified by a young woman who seems to be awaking after sleep. Her body appears to be filled with a kind of languor, a sigh hardly perceptible on her lips.

18. Morning — a fragment.

19: Evening is clothed in grave placidity.

20. Day is all painful tension.

21. Night is the most dramatic figure in the Chapel. The flesh of the woman is turning flabby, the whole figure speaks of complete exhaustion. The uncomfortable attitude can be explained by restless dreams. Night's attributes — the tragic mask and an owl, lend a note of drama to the sculpture.

22. Michelangelo who was an outstanding poet as well points out in a verse written as though pronounced by Night itself the Symbolic meaning of this sculpture. It says
in the poem that in this shameful epoch it is far better to be asleep or to be unfeeling stone.

23. The composition in the Chapel closes with the Madonna and Child one of
Michelangelo's best sculptures.

24. Several statues which were originally meant for the Medici Chapel were in the long run not included in the composition. The small figure of David was one of them. Viewing it from, various vantage points it becomes increasingly obvious that a wealth of movement was captured in it by Michelangelo.

25. This is another sculpture which was to adorn the Medici Chapel. The Crouching Baby (now on the show at the Hermitage in Leningrad). This small block of marble of practically cubic shape was hewn by the sculpture to portray the difficult position and life-like movements of the boy.

26. In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence where his life was constantly threatened and moved to Rome. The last stage of his creative activity was overshadowed by Italy’s national tragedy. It was the time of Catholic reaction when the last surviving remnants of liberal thinking and democracy were stamped out. The life-attesting culture of the Renaissance was bitterly persecuted by the Church. This last period of his creative activity acquires an even more tragic poignancy.