Michelangelo And The Pope's Ceiling Quotes
"Behind this church, in a small street overshadowed by the city wall, there could be found the workshop of the most sought-after artist in Italy."
"Michelangelo obeyed the call with great reluctance, having vowed he would never return to Rome."
"Michelangelo was thirty-three years old, born under a fortunate arrangement of the planets that had foretold 'success in the arts which delight the senses, such as painting, sculpture and architecture.'"
"His contract for the Pietà boldly claimed it would be 'the most beautiful work in marble that Rome has ever seen.'"
"Michelangelo’s talent for expressing monumental power through the male nude was revealed in the David, known as 'Il Gigante', or 'The Giant.'"
"So began what he would later call 'the tragedy of the tomb.'"
"Michelangelo, almost as renowned for his moody temper and aloof, suspicious nature as for his amazing skill with the hammer and chisel, could be arrogant, insolent, and impulsive."
"Michelangelo’s fears about Bramante—an ambitious but, by all reports, peaceable man—were either an outlandish fantasy or a fabricated excuse for his hasty departure from Rome."
"Michelangelo’s belief that he had cause to think that if he remained in Rome, his own tomb would be sooner made than the pope’s."
"Michelangelo's refusal to return to Rome was understandable, with the weight of his family's fortunes resting squarely on his shoulders."
"No one escaped his ruthless eye for detail, not even the pope."
"I went to the pope, who was almost disturbed with me because I did not warn them twice."
"Time would certainly have been of the essence."
"Painters and sculptors were regarded as craftsmen who worked according to precise instructions."
"Michelangelo claimed in a note to himself that he was working 'according to conditions and agreements' laid down by Cardinal Alidosi."
"The artist of Michelangelo’s time therefore bore little resemblance to the romantic ideal of the solitary genius."
"He merely shrugged his shoulders and then, according to Michelangelo, gave him free rein to design his own program."
"Michelangelo’s claim that he was given carte blanche by the pope must be viewed with suspicion."
"Michelangelo would certainly have been better prepared than most artists of his day when it came to conceiving rich and complex pictorial programs."
"Michelangelo had probably made drawings for, at most, only the first few scenes."
"Because the glues and gums used as fixatives were not as tenacious as the rock-hard intonaco, the secco touches were always the first to perish."
"Therefore let those who desire to work on the wall work boldly in fresco and not retouch a secco, because, besides being a very poor thing in itself, it renders the life of the pictures short."
"Ghirlandaio’s contract with Giovanni Tornabuoni, for example, decreed that the frescoes in Santa Maria Novella should be done entirely in buon fresco."
"Michelangelo might well have believed the Buonarroti to be descended from princes, but he himself did not live like a prince."
"Michelangelo then went on to paint the ceiling, as Condivi puts it, 'without any help whatever, not even someone to grind his colors for him.'"
"What was beneficial for Michelangelo’s art was not, however, quite so good for his personal relations."
"Ascanio, however rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man."
"His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid."
"The colours become clouded by that retouching and in a short time turn black."
"By Michelangelo’s time, painting exclusively in buon fresco—that is, without any secco additions whatsoever—was imperative for any artist."
"One of Michelangelo’s sketches of a figure on a Roman sarcophagus."
"Michelangelo found poses for some of these ignudi by copying Hellenistic reliefs in Rome."
"The sculpture was transported to Rome by the emperor Titus in 69 c.e."
"Cheering crowds tossed flowers as it trundled through the streets to the chanting of the papal choir."
"Michelangelo managed to create a compact, action-packed tableau."
"I am living here in a state of great anxiety and of the greatest physical fatigue."
"Nude models alone could not have provided Michelangelo with the hundreds of poses he needed."
"This debilitating condition, which persisted for months on end, must have affected his ability to make sketches and cartoons."
"In fact, becoming more and more kindled every day by his fervour in the work, he felt no fatigue and cared nothing for discomfort."
"To lose one’s possessions is not to lose one’s life."
"Michelangelo’s complaint to Buonarroto that he was suffering 'the greatest physical fatigues.'"
"Michelangelo was hard at work on Julius’s tomb and so undoubtedly drew the statue with the plan of carving versions of it for the mausoleum."
"Such were the hopeful delusions of medical science."
"Neither the pope’s health nor his mood was improved by the disastrous news."
"Michelangelo spent less than a week in Bologna, departing before the end of September."
"A pope with a beard—no one had ever seen such a thing."
"Luther explored Rome armed with the Mirabilia urbis romae, the guidebook for pilgrims."
"The pope’s military expedition and the foul weather at the end of 1510 also inconvenienced a pair of German monks."
"The pope had been hectically busy since his return from Ravenna in June."
"The pope’s recovery must have been a relief to Michelangelo."
"Michelangelo’s own figure of God was painted, like that of Adam, in a total of four giornate."
"Michelangelo may have been as tempted as the pope to take to his heels in the aftermath of Ravenna."
"A good many of the figures, particularly those on the margins of the fresco, are rude-looking and downright plain."
"Michelangelo was following a long tradition by inserting these undignified figures into the nooks and crannies of his fresco."
"Although obsessed with the ideal proportions of the human body, he was equally fascinated with bodies that violated these proportions."
"According to Condivi, one of Michelangelo’s first works was a copy of Martin Schongauer’s The Temptation of St. Anthony."
"Michelangelo’s self-portraits—of which he made any number in both marble and paint—often emphasize this homely appearance."
"Michelangelo belonged to a different tradition. With his misbegotten countenance and misshapen body, he resembled gloriously ugly Florentine artists."
"Michelangelo’s own adversities—those suffered on the scaffold, at least—were all but over by the time he wrote this letter to his father."
"Michelangelo’s fresco has weathered the centuries remarkably well, serving as an admirable illustration of Vasari’s confident assertion that fresco "resists anything that would injure it.""
"Artists had long been using the Sistine Chapel as a storehouse of ideas, and they continued to do so long after Reynolds."
"The idea of Michelangelo at the head of a team of assistants dashes the cherished notion of the artist toiling alone on his scaffold, on his back, like Charlton Heston in the 1965 film adaptation of Irving Stone’s novel The Agony and the Ecstasy."
"Michelangelo himself was largely responsible for this myth, as were Vasari, Condivi, and, much later, the German poet Goethe, who wrote, following a trip to Rome in the 1780s, that without visiting the Sistine Chapel we cannot understand what one man is capable of achieving."
"We now know that the fresco in the Sistine Chapel was not the work of a single individual."
"Despite anxieties about its methods, the restoration brought to light an extraordinary amount of new information regarding Michelangelo’s technique, influences, and collaborations."
"Criticism ultimately hinged on whether or not Michelangelo himself had applied many of the glue-based pigments and varnishes that Colalucci’s solvent had stripped away along with the film of soot."
"The restorers argued, on the other hand, that Michelangelo painted almost entirely in buon fresco, and that these darker tones were the accident of both airborne pollutants and the obscuring varnishes of incompetent restorations."
"Such a comprehensive restoration of one of the great landmarks of Western civilization did not proceed without criticism."
"Fought with a shrill animus on the front pages of newspapers and journals during the mid- to late 1980s, the controversy drew into the fray personalities such as Andy Warhol and Christo."
"Although disagreement persists as to how extensively Michelangelo retouched the painting a secco, it seems clear that, after a faltering start, he increasingly used buon fresco."
"The Vatican first reported, for instance, that the application of Paraloid B72 was 'thorough, complete and overall,' only to retract this statement a few years later."
"A stirring portrait of a delicate and demanding art, and how, against great odds, the world’s greatest artist taught himself how to do it."
"An intricately detailed history of the making of one of the signal masterpieces of Western civilization."
"This engrossing study is a clear picture both of technique and of the day-to-day routine in the Sistine Chapel."
"In the end, King succeeds in explaining just how the Sistine Chapel—in whole and in many parts—came to be."
"Satisfying, richly detailed history . . . A work that both entertains and informs."
"The fascinating story of the four years that the Italian artist painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel."
"A legend-busting, richly detailed account of the four-year making of the Sistine Chapel frescos."
"This engaging narrative sets the record straight on a few points and is highly recommended for most public library collections."
"Creative expression has as much to do with opportunity as it does talent."
"King has produced a knowledgeable, lucidly written, highly enjoyable book that clarifies the nature and magnitude of Michelangelo’s undertaking."