He writes also to his younger brother, Giovanni Simone, who appears to
have spent much and earned little: "If you will take care to do well,
and to honor and revere your father, I will aid you like the others and
will soon establish you in a good shop.... I have gone about through all
Italy for twelve years, leading a dog's life; bearing all manner of
insults, enduring all sorts of drudgery, lacerating my body with many
toils, placing my life itself under a thousand perils, solely to aid my
family; and now that I have commenced to raise it up a little, thou
alone wishest to do that which shall confound and ruin in an hour
everything that I have done in so many years and with so many fatigues."
Meantime the pope, as eager as a child to see the painting which he knew
would help to immortalize himself, urged the artist to work faster, and
continually asked when it would be finished and the scaffolding taken
down. "When I can, holy father," replied the artist. "When I can--when I
can! I'll make thee finish it, and quickly, as thou shalt see!" And he
struck Michael Angelo with the staff which he held in his hand.
The sculptor at once left the painting and started for Florence. But
Julius sent after him, and gave him five hundred crowns to pacify him.
It certainly would have been a pecuniary saving to the pontiff not to
have given way to his temper and used his staff!
When half the ceiling was completed, at Julius's request the scaffolding
was removed, and all Rome crowded to see the wonderful work on All
Saints' Day, 1509.
Kugler says, "The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most
perfect works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here
his great spirit appears in its noblest dignity, in its highest purity;
here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary display to which
his great power not unfrequently seduced him in other works."
The paintings represent God the Father separating the light from the
darkness; he creates the sun and moon; surrounded by angels, he commands
the waters to bring forth all kinds of animals which can live in the
sea; he breathes into man the breath of life; he forms Eve; both are
driven from the garden; Abel is sacrificed; the flood comes; Noah and
his family are saved in the ark.
Grimm thus describes a portion of this marvellous painting: "Adam lies
on a dark mountain summit. His formation is finished; nothing more
remains than that he should rise, and feel for the first time what life
and waking are. It is as if the first emotion of his new condition
thrilled through him; as if, still lying almost in a dream, he divined
what was passing around him. God hovers slowly down over him from above,
softly descending like an evening cloud. Angel forms surround him on
all sides, closely thronging round him as if they were bearing him; and
his mantle, as if swelled out by a full gust of wind, forms a flowing
tent around them all. These angels are children in appearance, with
lovely countenances: some support him from below, others look over his
shoulder. More wonderful still than the mantle which embraces them all
is the garment which covers the form of God himself, violet-gray
drapery, transparent as if woven out of clouds, closely surrounding the
mighty and beautiful form with its small folds, covering him entirely
down to the knees, and yet allowing every muscle to appear through it. I
have never seen the portrait of a human body which equalled the beauty
of this. Cornelius justly said that since Phidias its like has not been
formed....
"God commands and Adam obeys. He signs him to rise, and Adam seizes his
hand to raise himself up. Like an electric touch, God sends a spark of
his own spirit, with life-giving power, into Adam's body. Adam lay there
powerless; the spirit moves within him; he raises his head to his
Creator as a flower turns to the sun, impelled by that wonderful power
which is neither will nor obedience....
"The next picture is the creation of Eve. Adam lies on his right side
sunk in sleep, and completely turned to the spectator. One arm falls
languidly on his breast, and the back of the fingers rest upon the
ground.... Eve stands behind Adam; we see her completely in profile....
We feel tempted to say she is the most beautiful picture of a woman
which art has produced.... She is looking straight forward; and we feel
that she breathes for the first time: but it seems as if life had not
yet flowed through her veins, as if the adoring, God-turned position was
not only the first dream-like movement, but as if the Creator himself
had formed her, and called her from her slumber, in this position."
The pope was anxious to have the scaffolding again erected, and the
figures touched with gold. "It is unnecessary," said Michael Angelo.
"But it looks poor," said Julius, who should have thought of this before
he insisted on its being shown to the public. "They are poor people whom
I have painted there," said the artist; "they did not wear gold on their
garments," and Julius was pacified.
Raphael was now working near Michael Angelo in the Vatican palace, but
it is probable that they did not become friends, though each admired the
genius of the other, and Raphael "thanked God that he had been born in
the same century as Michael Angelo." But there was rivalry always
between the followers of the two masters.
Raphael was gentle, affectionate, sympathetic, intense, lovable; Michael
Angelo was tender at heart but austere in manner, doing only great
works, and thinking great thoughts. "Raphael," says Grimm, "had one
excellence, which, perhaps, as long as the world stands, no other
artist has possessed to such an extent,--his works suit more closely the
average human mind. There is no line drawn above or below. Michael
Angelo's ideals belong to a nobler, stronger generation, as if he had
had demigods in his mind, just as Schiller's poetical forms, in another
manner, often outstep the measure of the ordinary mortal.... Leonardo
sought for the fantastic, Michael Angelo for the difficult and the
great; both labored with intense accuracy, both went their own ways, and
impressed the stamp of nature on their works. Raphael proceeded quietly,
often advancing in the completion only to a certain point, at which he
rested, apparently not jealous at being confounded with others. He
paints at first in the fashion of Perugino, and his portraits are in the
delicate manner of Leonardo: a certain grace is almost the only
characteristic of his works. At length he finds himself in Rome, opposed
alone to Michael Angelo; then only does the true source of power burst
out within him; and he produces works which stand so high above all his
former ones that the air of Rome which he breathed seemed to have worked
wonders in him.... Raphael served the court with agreeable
obsequiousness; but under the outward veil of this subservient
friendliness there dwelt a keen and royal mind, which bent before no
power, and went its own way solitarily, like the soul of Michael
Angelo."
The Sistine Chapel was finished, probably, in 1512, and Michael Angelo
returned with ardor to the Julius monument, which, however, had been
reduced in plan from the original. He worked on the central figure,
Moses, with great joy, believing it would be his masterpiece. "This
statue," says Charles Christopher Black of Trinity College, Cambridge,
"takes rank with the Prometheus of AEschylus, with the highest and
noblest conceptions of Dante and Shakespeare."
"He sits there," says Grimm, "as if on the point of starting up, his
head proudly raised; his hand, under the arm of which rest the tables of
the law, is thrust in his beard, which falls in heavy, waving locks on
his breast; his nostrils are wide and expanding, and his mouth looks as
if the words were trembling on his lips. Such a man could well subdue a
rebellious people, drawing them after him, like a moving magnet, through
the wilderness and through the sea itself.
"What need we information, letters, supposititious records, respecting
Michael Angelo, when we possess such a work, every line of which is a
transcript of his mind?"
Emerson truly said, "Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm." No work either in literature or art can ever be great, or
live beyond a decade or two, unless the author or artist puts himself
into it,--his own glowing heart and earnest purpose. Mr. Black well
says, "The highest aim of art is not to produce a counterpart of nature,
but to convey by a judicious employment of natural forms, and a wise
deviation where required, the sentiment which it is the artist's object
to inculcate."
The statues of the two chained youths, or "Fettered Slaves," which were
too large after the monument had been reduced in size, were sent to
France. The "Dying Slave" will be recalled by all who have visited the
Renaissance sculptures of the Louvre. Grimm says, "Perhaps the tender
beauty of this dying youth is more penetrating than the power of
Moses.... When I say that to me it is the most elevated piece of
statuary that I know, I do so remembering the masterpieces of ancient
art. Man is always limited. It is impossible, in the most comprehensive
life, to have had everything before our eyes, and to have contemplated
that which we have seen, in the best and worthiest state of feeling....
I ask myself what work of sculpture first comes to mind if I am to name
the best, and at once the answer is ready,--the dying youth of Michael
Angelo.... What work of any ancient master do we, however, know or
possess which touches us so nearly as this,--which takes hold of our
soul so completely as this exemplification of the highest and last human
conflict does, in a being just developing? The last moment, between life
and immortality,--the terror at once of departing and arriving,--the
enfeebling of the powerful youthful limbs, which, like an empty and
magnificent coat of mail, are cast off by the soul as she rises, and
which, still losing what they contained, seem nevertheless completely
to veil it!
"He is chained to the pillar by a band running across the breast, below
the shoulders; his powers are just ebbing; the band sustains him; he
almost hangs in it; one shoulder is forced up, and towards this the head
inclines as it falls backwards. The hand of this arm is placed on his
breast; the other is raised in a bent position behind the head, in such
an attitude as in sleep we make a pillow of an arm, and it is fettered
at the wrist. The knees, drawn closely together, have no more firmness;
no muscle is stretched; all has returned to that repose which indicates
death."
A year after the Sistine Chapel was finished, Pope Julius died, and was
succeeded by Leo X., at whose side the artist had sat when a boy, in the
palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was a man of taste and culture,
and desired to build a monument to himself in his native Florence. He
therefore commissioned Michael Angelo to build a beautiful, sculptured
facade for the Church of San Lorenzo, erected by Cosmo de' Medici from
designs of Brunelleschi.
For nearly four years the sculptor remained among the mountains of
Carrara, and the adjacent ones of Serravezza, taking out heavy blocks of
marble, making roads over the steep rocks for their transportation, and
studying architecture with great assiduity.
Meantime, Michael Angelo writes to his "Dearest father: Take care of
your health, and see whether you are not still able to get your daily
bread; and, with God's help, get through, poor but honest. I do not do
otherwise; I live shabbily, and care not for outward honor; a thousand
cares and works burden me; and thus I have now gone on for fifteen years
without having a happy, quiet hour. And I have done all for the sake of
supporting you, which you have never acknowledged or believed. God
forgive us all! I am ready to go on working as long as I can, and as
long as my powers hold out."
Later he hears that his father is ill, and writes anxiously to his
brother, "Take care, also, that nothing is lacking in his nursing; for I
have exerted myself for him alone, in order that to the last he might
have a life free of care. Your wife, too, must take care of him, and
attend to his necessities; and all of you, if necessary, must spare no
expenses, even if it should cost us everything."
Finally the facade of San Lorenzo was abandoned by Leo X., who decided
to erect a new chapel north of the church, for the reception of
monuments to his brother and nephew, Giuliano and Lorenzo. The artist
built the new sacristy, bringing thither three hundred cart-loads of
marble from Carrara.
Leo died in 1521, and was succeeded by Adrian, who lived only a year,
and then by Clement VII., the cousin of Leo X. He was a warm friend of
Michael Angelo, and so desirous was he of keeping the artist in his
service that he endeavored to have him take holy orders, but the offer
was refused.
Like the other popes he wished to immortalize his name, and therefore
gave the artist the building of the Laurentian library, adjoining San
Lorenzo.
Meantime the relatives of Pope Julius were justly angry because his tomb
was not completed, and threatened to imprison the sculptor for not
fulfilling his contract. All art work was soon discontinued through the
sacking of Rome by Charles V. of Germany, in 1527. Upon the inlaid
marble floor of the Vatican the German soldiers lighted their fires, and
with valuable documents made beds for their horses which stood in the
Sistine Chapel. Rome had ninety thousand inhabitants under Leo X. A year
after the conquest, she had scarcely a third of that number.
The Florentines now expelled the Medici, revived the republic, and
appointed Michael Angelo to superintend the fortifications and defences
of Florence. He had always loved liberty. Now he loaned his funds freely
to the republic, fortified the hill of San Miniato, was sent to Ferrara
by the government to study its fortifications, and also on an embassy to
Venice. He showed himself as skilful in engineering as in architecture
or painting.
With quick intuition he soon perceived that Malatesta Baglioni, the
captain-general of the republic, was a traitor, and, warned that he
himself was to be assassinated, he fled to Venice.
Here, in exile, he probably wrote his beautiful sonnets to Dante, whose
works he so ardently admired.
"How shall we speak of him? for our blind eyes
Are all unequal to his dazzling rays.
Easier it is to blame his enemies,
Than for the tongue to tell his highest praise.
For us he did explore the realms of woe;
And, at his coming, did high heaven expand
Her lofty gates, to whom his native land
Refused to open hers. Yet shall thou know,
Ungrateful city, in thine own despite,
That thou hast fostered best thy Dante's fame;
For virtue, when oppressed, appears more bright.
And brighter, therefore, shall his glory be,
Suffering of all mankind most wrongfully,
Since in the world there lives no greater name."