03 — ARTWORK
Slave (bearded)
MICHELANGELO Buonarroti · 1536 →
- MEDIUM
- Marble, height 248 cm
- TYPE
- Mythological
PALETTE
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CURRENT LOCATION · Galleria dell'Accademia
- FILE
- 1400 × 2100 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
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 antiquethe classical age of Greece and Rome began with the Greek migrations of the 2nd millennium BC, and ended in the West in 476 AD with the deposition of the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus (c. 475 AD); in the East it ended in 529 AD when the Platonic Academy was closed by Justinian (482 - 565 AD). statuary; in part it perhaps arises because some sections were only roughed out.
OTHER WORKS BY MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r11ba4e41257179,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Slave (bearded) by MICHELANGELO Buonarroti},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-14},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/michelangelo-buonarroti-r3de9890382970b/slave-bearded-r11ba4e41257179},
urldate = {2026-09-14},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-14. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.