HOW DID MICHELANGELO GET SO FAMOUS?

Sister Wendy Beckett

art expert

Some people are famous for a few years and some are famous all their lives and some are famous even after their lives and a few, very, very few, are famous forever. Michelangelo is one of these very, very few. He was famous in his own lifetime, he is famous in our lifetime, and he will be famous in your great-grandchildren’s lifetime.

Well, your question is: how? Why is he so famous? He is famous and will always be famous because he made marvellous paintings, especially the stupendous stories that he painted on the ceiling of an important church in Rome called the Sistine Chapel.

He carved wonderful figures too. The best-known are his great and beautiful figures of David and Moses, two heroes from the Bible. Even more beautiful is his carving of the Virgin Mary holding her dead son Jesus and grieving. It is called the Pietà (pronounced ‘Pee-ay-ta’).

When people look at these works of art they feel awe and wonder. Sometimes tears of joy come into their eyes, because it is such an astonishing thing to be in contact with so moving a sign of what we humans can make. There is so much badness all around us, and here is something absolutely good.

But when a little person looks at something so great, they may not feel this sense of wonder. Really seeing what Michelangelo has done is not like turning on a switch. We have to grow into what we are seeing. Some big people are never able to do this. Their bodies have grown big but they are still little people inside. Usually this is because nobody has ever told them about art and what it can mean for us.

You are lucky because just in reading this, you are starting to learn. You already know that it is worth looking at a great artist like Michelangelo, and looking again, and going on looking, until one day you ‘see’. Believe me, the day you ‘see’ the Sistine Chapel or the Pietà or David will be one of the most memorable days of your life.