Grandeur was Michael Angelo’s prevailing sentiment. In his architecture of St. Peter’s, he seems to have been limited by the impossibility of arriving to excellence without adopting the ancient styles, and the necessity of attempting something great without them; and to speak with the severity of uncompromising truth he failed. Of what else he did in that science, and he did much, for which he obtained deserved renown, there is neither room nor occasion to speak. In painting and sculpture, if he did not always succeed in embodying his feelings, yet he succeeded more frequently than any other artist since the revival of arts; and, as his power was greater than theirs, so he accomplished greater works. His aim was elevated as that of the giants who warred against the fabled gods; in one respect he was unlike them—he conquered. Majestic and wild as nature in her undescribable sublimity, he achieved with corresponding greatness and beauty. His forms and their intellectual expression are of the highest order. He never did any thing little. All was in harmony with a mind which he created of himself by adding fact to fact, by severe reading, by close observation, by study, by seclusion. He was the quarrier, and architect, and builder-up of his own greatness.
Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with becoming deference of Michael Angelo’s powers.—“It will not be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man. He was the bright luminary from whom painting has borrowed a new lustre, under whose hands it assumed a new appearance, and became another and superior art, and from whom all his contemporaries and successors have derived whatever they have possessed of the dignified and majestic.”
There are excellent casts from three of Michael Angelo’s statues exhibited by Mr. West at Mr. Bullock’s museum, in Piccadilly; they are, Christ, from the church of Sta. Maria at Florence, Lorenzo de Medici from his monument, and the celebrated Moses, from the church of St. Pietro, in Vincoli, at Rome. The editor of the Every-day Book has conversed with persons who think themselves pupils and students in sculpture and painting without having seen these!
Michael Angelo had studied anatomy profoundly. Condivi, who was his pupil and one of his biographers, says that his knowledge of human anatomy and of other animals was so correct, that those who had studied it as a profession all their lives, scarcely understood it so well. When he began to dissect he conceived disgust from the offensiveness of the operation and desisted; but reflecting that it was disgraceful to abandon what others could achieve, he resumed and pursued it to the fullest extent. Perceiving the utility of Albert Durer’s “Treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body,” he deemed it capable of improvement. Its rules were in his opinion insufficient and too mechanical, and he contemplated a treatise to exhibit the muscles in their various action. A friend, whom he consulted on the subject, sent him the body of a fine young Moor, which he dissected and made remarks on, but they were never published. The result of his anatomical knowledge may be seen in the powerful muscular developement of his figures: he left no part undefined.
Several remarks occur in the course of Michael Angelo’s letters concerning his art. Speaking of the rivalry between sculpture and painting, he says, “The sculptor arrives at his end by taking away what is superfluous; the painter produces his, by adding the materials which embody the representation to the mind: however, after all, they are both produced by the same intelligence, and the superiority is not worth disputing about, since more time may be lost in the discussion, than would produce the works themselves.” At one time, however, Michael Angelo regarded painting with less favour than he expresses in this letter. It is addressed to Varchi, who wrote a dissertation on the subject, and sent it to him with an inquiry, which had divided the amateurs of Florence, as to whether painting or sculpture required the most talent. Varchi’s treatise has the merit of having convinced Michael Angelo that he was in error, and with the truth and candour inseparable from such a character he confessed his mistake. “Of the relative importance of painting and sculpture,” says Michael Angelo, “I think painting excellent in proportion as it approaches relievo, and relievo bad in proportion as it partakes of the character of a picture, and therefore I was used to be of opinion, that painting might be considered as borrowing light from sculpture, and the difference between them as the sun and moon. Now, however, since I have read your dissertation, which treats the subject philosophically, and shows, that those things which have the same end, are one, and the same, I have changed my opinion, and say, that, if greater judgment, labour, difficulty, and impediment, confer no dignity on the work on which it is bestowed, painting and sculpture may be considered without giving the preeminence to either: and since it has been so considered, no painter ought to undervalue sculpture, and in like manner, no sculptor ought to make light of painting.”
Great as Michael Angelo was in art, his intellectual character was greater. “No one,” says Mr. Duppa, “ever felt the dignity of human nature with its noblest attributes more forcibly than Michael Angelo, and his disgust at any violation of principle was acute in proportion to his sensibility and love of truth.” He despised and shrunk from the shadow of a meanness: hating the heartlessness of unmeaning profession, he regarded the dazzling simulation which constitutes the polish of society as a soul-cloud. With these commanding views of self dignity he poured out his feelings to his friend Luigi del Ricco, in