The century of Columbus

by James J. Walsh

Some critics have objected that the "Madonna" in the [{36}] group is entirely too young to be the mother of the dead son, who lies across her knees. Michelangelo's own answer to that objection is, of course, the only one that will interest those who love the group and would like to know just his meaning. We have it from Condivi, to whom Michelangelo confided it:

"Don't you know," he said, "that chaste women keep their youthful looks much longer than others? Isn't this much more true in the case of a Virgin who had never known a wanton desire to leave its shade upon her beauty! ... It is quite the contrary with the form of the 'Son of God,' because I wanted to show that He really took upon Him human flesh, and that He bore all the miseries of man, yet without sin."

The "Pietà" is probably one of the supreme sculptures of all time, but Michelangelo's next important work was to place him beyond all doubt in the rank of world sculptors. This was his "David." It is all the more interesting because of the difficulties under which he executed it. A huge block of marble of the finest vein lay in the works at Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, which several sculptors had designed to make use of and at least two or three had begun work on, but then had given up. Michelangelo saw it and saw in it the possibilities of a heroic statue. He offered his design, it was accepted by the authorities, and he set to work. He built a workshop on the spot and shut himself up for eighteen months, absolutely refusing to let anyone see his work. The result was the "David" so well known. A copy of it was afterwards made in bronze and may be seen on the hill above Florence. It has often been said that the difference in impressiveness between the bronze and marble statues shows how much better adapted marble is for the expression of the human figure. The triumph of the artist, not only in the execution of this triumphant expression of youth, but also over the strict limitations of his materials, shows the eminently practical genius of the man who, at the age of thirty, was able to accomplish such a work.

RAPHAEL, POPE JULIUS II

After these great sculptures, Michelangelo entered into a competition in painting and was chosen as a rival of Leonardo to decorate one side of the Council Hall of the Signory. Leonardo was already at work when Michelangelo received his [{37}] commission. Unfortunately neither of the paintings was ever completed. Only a portion of Leonardo's cartoon remains for us, though Michelangelo's, representing some Pisan soldiers surprised by Florentines while bathing in the Arno, is now at Holkham Hall in England and has been well engraved by Schiavonetti. This cartoon was the subject of much study by contemporaries, and Raphael particularly was greatly influenced by it.

After this work Michelangelo was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II and commissioned to make that great tomb which occupied so much of Angelo's attention for the next quarter of a century, caused him so many difficulties and disturbances of mind and was destined eventually to remain unfinished or at least to be of nothing like the significance that was originally planned. If one looks a little into Michelangelo's life at this time, surrounded as he was by the jealousies of his colleagues, disturbed at his work by political animosities of various kinds, by the slights of those who failed to appreciate and the open envy of those who favored his rivals, some idea of the difficulties of his artistic soul will be understood.

In the midst of his preparations for the making of the great tomb of Pope Julius, for which he spent nearly a year in the quarries up at Carrara obtaining the proper kind of marble and working out three or four statues while the men of the quarries were getting out the other marble that he wished, the execution of the tomb was put off. Fortunately the work done at this time was not entirely lost. The two galley slaves at the Louvre, which are among the greatest sculptures of their kind ever made, attest Michelangelo's industry, as well as genius, and they have been favorite studies of artists of all kinds ever since.

When the execution of the tomb was put off Michelangelo was summoned to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel. It is said that he owed this commission to the jealousy of rivals who hoped to discredit him. The Sistine Chapel is a most difficult room for effective decoration, since it is simply an oblong box with a low-vaulted ceiling. It was this ceiling that Michelangelo was supposed to decorate in fresco. He [{38}] refused at first to accept the commission, saying that he was no fresco painter, but the Pope insisted. For over three years, except when eating and sleeping, he was hidden behind the scaffolding, lying on his back most of the time painting above him, so that he could not read without placing his book above his head after a while. When the scaffold was taken down, the triumphant manifestation of his genius revealed one of the most superb monuments of art that the world possesses.

As Grimm says, "If a man wants to get an idea of the art of Giotto and his pupils, architecture and painting together, he must go to the Campo Santo at Pisa; if he wants the masterpiece of the following art period, the extensive development that lies between Masaccio and Michelangelo, he must go to the Sistine Chapel."