Editing Michelangelo (section)

===Male figure===
The kneeling ''[[Angel (Michelangelo)|Angel]]'' is an early work, one of several that Michelangelo created as part of a large decorative scheme for the Arca di San Domenico in the church dedicated to that saint in Bologna. Several other artists had worked on the scheme, beginning with [[Nicola Pisano]] in the 13th century. In the late 15th century, the project was managed by [[Niccolò dell'Arca]]. An angel holding a candlestick, by Niccolò, was already in place.<ref name="Goldscheider1962 9">{{cite book |last1=Buonarroti |first1=Michelangelo |last2=Goldscheider |first2=Ludwig |title=Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture |year=1962 |publisher=Phaidon Publishers |page=9|url=https://archive.org/details/michaelangelo0000unse_h2o4/page/8/mode/2up}}</ref> Although the two angels form a pair, there is a great contrast between the two works, the one depicting a delicate child with flowing hair clothed in Gothic robes with deep folds, and Michelangelo's depicting a robust and muscular youth with eagle's wings, clad in a garment of Classical style. Everything about Michelangelo's ''Angel'' is dynamic.<ref>Hirst and Dunkerton, pp. 20–21.</ref> Michelangelo's ''Bacchus'' was a commission with a specified subject, the youthful [[Bacchus|God of Wine]]. The sculpture has all the traditional attributes, a vine wreath, a cup of wine and a fawn, but Michelangelo ingested an air of reality into the subject, depicting him with bleary eyes, a swollen bladder and a stance that suggests he is unsteady on his feet. While the work is plainly inspired by Classical sculpture, it is innovative for its rotating movement and strongly three-dimensional quality, which encourages the viewer to look at it from every angle.<ref>Bartz and König, pp. 26–27.</ref>

In the so-called ''Dying Slave'', Michelangelo again utilised the figure with marked [[contraposto|contrapposto]] to suggest a particular human state, in this case waking from sleep. With the ''Rebellious Slave'', it is one of two such earlier figures for the Tomb of Pope Julius II, now in the Louvre, that the sculptor brought to an almost finished state.<ref>Bartz and König, pp. 62–63.</ref> These two works were to have a profound influence on later sculpture, through [[Rodin]] who studied them at the Louvre.<ref>Yvon Taillandier, ''Rodin'', New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, (1977) {{ISBN|0-517-88378-3}}.</ref> The ''[[Atlas Slave]]'' is one of the later figures for Pope Julius' tomb. The works, known collectively as ''The Captives'', each show the figure struggling to free itself, as if from the bonds of the rock in which it is lodged. The works give a unique insight into the sculptural methods that Michelangelo employed and his way of revealing what he perceived within the rock.<ref>Coughlan, pp. 166–67.</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="4">
File:Autori vari, arca di san domenico, angelo reggicandelabro di michelangelo, 1494, 02.jpg|''[[Angel (Michelangelo)|Angel]]'' by Michelangelo, early work (1494–95)
File:Michelangelo Bacchus.jpg|''[[Bacchus (Michelangelo)|Bacchus]]'' by Michelangelo, early work (1496–1497)
File:'Dying Slave' Michelangelo JBU001.jpg|''[[Dying Slave]]'', [[Louvre]] (1513)
File:Michelangelo - Atlas.jpg|''[[Atlas Slave]]'' (1530–1534)
</gallery>