# Slave \(awakening\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MICHELANGELO Buonarroti]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Marble, height 267 cm ## Commentary While a certain massiveness characterizes all figures devised for the Julian monument, two in particular, the Bearded Slave and the Awakening Slave, with their grosser proportions, may appear to anticipate the ideal of heroic masculinity that appears in the later frescoes. This view is mistaken. In part the effect is created by Michelangelo's distinctive interpretation of the heavy muscularity that conventionally characterizes older men in antique statuary; in part it perhaps arises because some sections were only roughed out. ## Related artworks - [A Man Lifting a Boar onto his Shoulder \(verso\)]() - [Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Judah]() - [Achim - Eliud \(detail\)]() - [Achim - Eliud \(detail\)]() - [Achim - Eliud]() - [Aeneas with a Boy \(recto\)]() - [Allegorical figure]() - [Amminadab \(detail\)]() - [Amminadab \(detail\)]() - [Amminadab]() - [Ancestors of Christ: figures \(detail\)]() - [Ancestors of Christ: figures \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()