Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People — John Shaqi
Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young PeopleBacon, Mary Schell Hoke
General
Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People
Bacon, Mary Schell Hoke
Art -- Juvenile literature; Painters -- Juvenile literature; Painting -- Juvenile literature
In height he was a little man, topped by an abnormally large head
which was part of the penalty he had to pay for his talents. He had a
great, broad forehead, and an eye that did not gleam nor express the
beauty of his creative mind, but was dull, and lustreless, matching
his broken, flattened nose. Indeed he was a tragedy to himself. In the
"History of Painting" Muther describes his unhappy disposition:
"In his youthful years he never learned what love meant. 'If thou
wishest to conquer me,' in old age he addresses love, 'give me back my
features, from which nature has removed all beauty.' Whenever in his
sonnets he speaks of passion, it is always of pain and tears, of
sadness and unrequited longing, never of the fulfilment of his
wishes."
Then, too, Michael Angelo had a quarrelsome disposition, and he was
harsh in his criticism of others. He hated Leonardo da Vinci more for
his great physical beauty than for his genius. He quarreled with most
of his contemporaries, never joined the assemblies of his brother
artists, but dwelt altogether apart. His was a gloomy and melancholy
disposition and he never found relief outside his work.
He was all kinds of an artist--poet, sculptor, architect, painter--and
although he worked with the irregularity of true genius, he worked
indefatigably when once he began. It is said that when he was making
his "David" he never removed his clothing the whole time he was
employed upon the work, but dropped down when too exhausted to work
more, and slept wherever he fell.
His first flight from the workshop of Ghirlandajo was to the gardens
of the great Florentine prince, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had sent to
Ghirlandajo for two of his best pupils. He wished them to come to his
gardens and study the beautiful Greek statues which ornamented
them. The choice fell to Angelo and Granacci. Probably those statues
in Lorenzo's garden were the first glimpses of really great art that
Michael Angelo ever had. Certain it is that he was overwhelmed with
happiness when he was given permission to copy what he would, and at
once he fell to work with his chisel. His first work in that garden
was upon the head of an old faun; and Lorenzo, walking by, curious to
know to what use the lad was putting his opportunity, made a
criticism:
"You have made your faun old," he said, "yet you have left all the
teeth; at such an age, generally the teeth are wanting."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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