Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young PeopleBacon, Mary Schell Hoke
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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
"Well, they were poor things," was Angelo's answer. "The saints did
not wear golden ornaments, nor gold on their garments."
After Julius II. and Leo X. came Pope Paul III., and he, like the
other two, determined to have Angelo for his workman. Indeed all his
life, Michael Angelo's gifts were commanded by the Church of Rome. It
was for Paul III. he painted the "Last Judgment." His former work upon
the Sistine Chapel had been the story of the creation. All his work
was of a mighty and allegorical nature; tremendous shoulders, mighty
limbs, herculean muscles that seemed fit to support the
universe. These allegories are made of hundreds of figures. To-day
they are still there, though dimmed by the smoke of centuries of
incense, and dismembered by the cracking of plaster and disintegration
of materials.
Angelo's methods of work, as well as their results, were
oppressive. In his youth, while trying to perfect himself in his study
of the human form, he drew or modelled, from nude corpses. He had
these conveyed by stealth from the hospital into the convent of Santo
Spirito, where he had a cell and there he worked, alone.
He was concentrated, mentally and emotionally, upon himself. The only
remark he made after the blow from Torregiano was, "You will be
remembered only as the man who broke my nose!" This proved nearly
true, since Torregiano was banished, and murdered by the Spanish
Inquisition.
All sorts of anecdotes have floated through the centuries concerning
this man and his work. For example, he made a statue of a sleeping
cupid, which was buried in the ground for a time that it might assume
the appearance of age, and pass for an antique. Afterward it was sold
to the Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats, though Michael
Angelo received only thirty. Nevertheless, he died a rich man, after
having cared for a numerous family, while he himself lived like a man
without means. All the tranquillity he ever knew he enjoyed in his old
age.
It was characteristic of his perversity that he left his name upon
nothing that he made, with one exception. Vasari relates the story of
that exception:
"The love and care which Michael Angelo had given to this group, 'In
Paradise,' were such that he there left his name--a thing he never did
again for any work--on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our
Lady; for it happened one day that Michael Angelo, entering the place
where it was erected, found a large assemblage of strangers from
Lombardy there, who were praising it highly; one of them asking who
had done it, was told, 'our Hunchback of Milan'; hearing which Michael
Angelo remained silent, although surprised that his work should be
attributed to another. But one night he repaired to St. Peter's with a
light and his chisels, to engrave his name on the figure, which seems
to breathe a spirit as perfect as her form and countenance."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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