Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and the David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Later in life he designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionised classical architecture with his use of the giant order of pilasters.
In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.[2] Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime; One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one"wink.[3] One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità , a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance, Mannerism
Fate in Romeo and Juliet Bob Garrard Do you believe in fate? To answer the question, you must first have a correct idea of what fate is. A definition of fate would be the power that is supposed to settle ahead of time how things will happen. Could there be such a power that rules our lives, and if so, why? Romeo and Juliet, the two young lovers in William Shakespeare' s Romeo and Juliet, ended up becoming a large part of what could be called fate. Fate seemed to control their lives and force them together, becoming a large part of their love, and the ending of their parent's hatred. Fate became the ultimate control power in this play, and plays a large part in modern everyday life, even if we don't recognize it. Maybe we don't recognize it because we choose not to, or don't have faith like we used to, but the fact remains that fate controls what we do throughout all of our lives. A large part of the beliefs for both Romeo and Juliet involve fate. They believed in the stars, and that their actions weren't always their own. Romeo, for example, 1.4.115-120, he says, Some consequence yet hanging in the stars...by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage over my course Direct my sail. He's basically saying to his friends that he had a dream which leads him to believe that he will die young because of something in the stars, something that will happen. He ends with ...he that hath steerage over my course... which implies that he does not have control over his life if he looks to another power above himself to direct him. He does not feel that he is the one who makes decisions, it is all a higher purpose, a different power. We're all sort of like the puppets below the puppeteer. He's asking for that puppeteer to direct his sail, or his life, in the right direction. Fate directs us all like the puppets on the end of it's string, and I believe strongly in it. It is, in many ways, the mystical power that controls who and what we become, and it explains that which can not be explained. Romeo was looking to this power, asking of this power to direct him, not to an untimely death as he foresaw in his dream, but to just steer him, because that is the control which he knows he does not have over himself. Nonetheless, fate still managed to weave Romeo into a twisted web of it's power's and plan's. It did this by starting with a few simple emotions and actions. Romeo had a crush on Rosaline, who did not return these feelings. Next, an illiterate servant of the Capulet's was sent to invite people on a list to a party that the Capulet's were throwing. While Romeo babbled on about his life with Benvolio, his cousin and kinsmen, Romeo bumped into this servant who asked him to read the list, with Rosaline's name, which got Romeo to agree to go after the servant invited them. This sets everything up for the two lovers. They meet at the party, Romeo memorized by her beauty, and her simply memorized by him. They realize later their identity, but they are in love and won't let their names get in the way of that strong emotional bind. If fate didn't put all this together, then what or who did? What were the chances of all of this happening to two loathed enemies? It would probably be a million to one. Fate set up their love, their love already predestined, as well as their suicides, which they both foresaw. Romeo and Juliet throughout the play have dreams or visions of their deaths. Juliet for example in 3.5.55, she says, Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. She sees Romeo dead in a tomb, which is where he eventually ends up in the end of the play, beside her. This why she talks about Romeo being so low in a tomb, he's dead, and she has foreseen it, before it has even happened. How could she have seen the future if it wasn't already decided for her? The answer is, she probably couldn't have. I'm very superstitious and believe in dreams and powers beyond us, that in the end everything
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