The sculpture of Moses by Michelangelo It is one of the most famous in history. Observe it carefully and take a good look at it. Do you see anything strange? I’m sure you’ve already noticed that this man has two horns sticking out of his head! Why would it be him?…
Below you will discover the reason and some other curious facts about this wonderful work.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, genius of the Renaissance
Miguel Ángel Buonarroti He is one of the Art geniuses of all time and the great figure of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in 1475 in Caprese although he spent his childhood in Florence. From a very young age he knew that he wanted to be an artist. His father did not like this idea too much but in the end he relented and allowed him to enter as an apprentice in a prestigious painting workshop. Michelangelo was 13 years old at the time and he immediately proved to be an extraordinary painter and draftsman.
At that time the city was governed by Lorenzo de’ Medici, a powerful man and such a lover of art, that he created a school where the most talented young people could learn to sculpt.
At the age of 14, Miguel Ángel had the opportunity to enter it and, for a few years, surround himself with great artists and the most cultured people of the time. He quickly became one of the most admired artists of his time, thanks to masterpieces such as his very famous David.
Michelangelo is commissioned to create Moses
Being a young man of 30 years, Pope Julius II asks him to travel to Rome to give him a very important order: he wants me to design and make his tomb.
It was a large funerary monument with more than forty statues and, logically, Michelangelo was enthusiastic. There was no doubt that he was a very complete artist and gifted in painting and architecture, but above all he felt like a sculptor. He loved carving stone and for him, being able to make the grandiose funeral monument for such an important person was a great opportunity.
Unfortunately, due to lack of money and many other problems, this ambitious project could not be carried out and Michelangelo only managed to create some of the sculptures for a much smaller final monument, among them the Moses, which was completed in 1515.
Who is Moses?
Moses He is an important character of the Biblea very ancient book that tells the history of a nation called Israel.
According to the Bible texts, in the time of the pharaohs, many Israelites lived as slaves in Egypt. Moses was in charge of helping them flee from there and take them to a new land where they could be free. The story goes that one day, during the flight, God asked Moses to go up a mountain to give him some tables where he had to write Ten Commandments, that is, ten rules that the people of Israel had to comply with. One of the most important was that they could only worship him, the only God. Moses listened to God and obeyed. When he returned from the mountain and wanted to tell everyone about these new rules, he found that the people had melted down precious metals and with them had built a golden calf that they were worshiping. Moses became so furious that he threw the tablets at the statue and destroyed it.
What does Michelangelo’s Moses tell us?
When an artist creates a sculpture, he decides what he wants to represent. Michelangelo could have created a pensive Moses, or walking, or reading… but it was not like that. When he sculpted his famous Moses, the great genius chose to execute the exact moment in which he comes down from the mountain and discovers his people worshiping the golden calf, the exact moment in which he goes into anger and is about to get up to throw the swords in fury. Tables of the Law. If you look closely you will see that he carries them under his right arm. Her whole body is tense and her face reflects the anger and annoyance that she feels at that moment. His gaze is so penetrating it’s almost scary!
This effect was achieved by Michelangelo thanks to his incredible mastery of technique. Despite working with a material as hard as marble, he was able to shape the figure and create different textures for each part. He observes how the appearance of the stone is different for his thick beard than for the folds of his clothing or the skin of his body. Have you noticed that you can even see the veins in his hands? Yes… he has achieved such amazing naturalism that Michelangelo himself, when he finished it, stood looking at it and shouted: “Now, Speak!” Certainly, the sculpture is so real that it seems that only the voice is missing.
Why does it have horns?
The original Bible was written in Hebrew. In the 4th century, Saint Jerome was the first to translate it into Latin so that all Christians could understand it.
In it you could read that when Moses met God on the mountain, “rays of light came from his face.” It is believed that when translating this phrase, Saint Jerome made the mistake of thinking that it meant “his face had horns,” and so he wrote it. From then on and for many centuries, many artists, when they painted or sculpted the figure of Moses, put little horns on his head. Michelangelo was one of them. In those times no one was surprised or thought it bad since the horns were a symbol of power and greatness.
I want to see the Moses but… where is it?
If you want to see it with your own eyes, you will have to travel to Rome (Italy), specifically to the Basilica of San Pietro In Vincolivery close to the famous Roman Coliseum.
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