Michelangelo-3 Part of “Creation of Adam”

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and poet, born in Florence in 1475,was one of the greatest artists of all times. Though he started as a sculptor, he excelled equally in the arts of painting and architecture with magnificent skill and prodigious originality. His master pieces in painting and sculpture, inspired by theology and philosophy, are superb, aesthetic expressions through the medium of the human body.

A striking attribute which distinguishes him from his great contemporaries, such as Raphael, was that, while they executed their commissions with the help of disciples and pupils, Michelangelo worked alone and unaided. Even the tremendous undertaking of the painting of the frescoes of the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome was accomplished by him single-handed. These intensely moving and awe-inspiring frescoes, as well as the final gigantic fresco of the Last Judgment undertaken by him it when in his sixties, again single-handed, had unsurpassed and incalculable influence on the art of his contemporaries and successors over many centuries. Every later artist at-tempting heroic expression through the human body has been inspired by Michelangelo’s frescoes, as also by his great sculptural masterpieces, such as the Pieta, David, Moses and the groups of statuary in the mausoleum of Lorenzo de Medici.

During the last lonely years of his life, the long-pent emotions of fervour and tenderness in the heart of this solitary and stern man, found expression in beautiful poetry that calls to mind the sonnets of Shakespeare. Michelangelo had an unconquerable heroic spirit for which he will ever command the admiration and respect of mankind. The total dedication of this supremely great artist to his work brings him close to the spiritual values held dear by thinkers of India and to the ideals of her ancient civilization. The Posts & Telegraphs Department feels privileged to honour this great artist by issuing a commemorative stamp during 1975 when his 500th birth anniversary is being observed.