Michelangelo Changed the Class of an Artist

In this episode of Primo and Payne: Great Art Explained, James Payne and Leslie Primo take a deep dive into the life and works of Michelangelo. Michelangelo had a complex relationship with social class in Renaissance Italy. Born into a modestly well-off but declining Florentine family, he was acutely aware of status and often sought to elevate his own position to elevate his family name.

Coming from the rough, manual labour of Renaissance artist workshops, he asserted his status as an artist grounded in individual genius, through his commissions for powerful patrons like the Medici and the papacy. This repositioning helped recast the artist from artisan to something closer to a modern rockstar: a singular, celebrated figure whose ideas carried as much weight as his labour.

Primo and Payne: Great Art Explained

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James Payne:

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Leslie Primo:

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Filmed and edited by Frédérique Cifuentes.