Genius of Michelangelo

By: William E. Wallace, The Great Courses

Narrated by: William E. Wallace

How much do we really know about Michelangelo? Conflicting viewpoints and much confusion surround many aspects of the Renaissance artist's life and art; myth and legend so envelop him that he sometimes seems more like a caricature than a complete human being. Despite a familiarity with some of his works, aspects of Michelangelo's art and life remain open to interpretation.

In The Genius of Michelangelo, internationally recognized Michelangelo expert and award-winning Professor of Art History William E. Wallace gives you a comprehensive perspective on one of history's greatest artists, unavailable in any other course. Drawing on a vast command of artistic knowledge and period detail, these 36 intellectually rewarding and dazzling lectures explore the relationship between truth and legend to reveal a groundbreaking new picture of Michelangelo as an artist, a businessman, an aristocrat, and a genius.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2007 The Great Courses (P)2007 The Teaching Company, LLC

Very good, but . . .

This is an excellent program and story of Michelangelo's life. William Wallace has dedicated his life to studying Michelangelo and has a very approachable style when presenting the story. It is very good. However, I am only giving the book 4 stars for one reason. This program is the audio tracks to a video course by The Great Courses. The author references visual examples extensively, which in a video program is understandable and expected. In an audio only course, we miss out on seeing the images. There is a work-around if you are ambitious. The booklet that comes with the program has a good outline of each lecture. At the end of each chapter, there is a list of all the images references in the lecture. If you have the book and do internet searches for the images you can see what the author was describing.

If I was reviewing the video program, I would give this an unqualified 5 stars. Since it is only the audio, I give it a qualified 4 stars.

Excellent but get ready to google…

The only reason I don’t rate this 5 stars is that the professor mentions details in the artwork that you will need to google to picture. The course comes with a pdf, so how difficult would it have been to add a photo to each chapter? I ended up looking everything up in order to understand what he was describing.

Michelangelo! The BEST

This audio book does justice to the genius of Michelangelo with profound insights and observations. It is mist informative and very inspiring. The reader is excellent and the "story"
is as well. A beautiful way to spend your time.

Skip this performance

While the content is very informative, the over-animated narration makes it inaccessible. Also, the narrator refers to works of art that he apparently shows in his lectures, but this is not provided with the audiobook, which is a significant detriment.

NO ART

I love this class and was thrilled to see an extensive accompanying PDF. However the PDF does not contain any of the art discussed during the class!
This is a huge oversight and renders this class virtually mute as a source for visual art education.