登陆注册
14718400000141

第141章

The celebrated Lorenzo de' Medici was then in the height of power and fame in Florence, adored by Roscoe as the patron of artists and poets, although he subverted the liberties of his country. This over-lauded prince, heir of the fortunes of a great family of merchants, wishing to establish a school for sculpture, filled a garden with statues, and freely admitted to it young scholars in art. Michael Angelo was one of the most frequent and enthusiastic visitors to this garden, where in due time he attracted the attention of the magnificent Lord of Florence by a head chiselled so remarkably that he became an inmate of the palace, sat at the table of Lorenzo, and at last was regularly adopted as one of the Prince's family, with every facility for prosecuting his studies.

Before he was eighteen the youth had sculptured the battle of Hercules with the Centaurs, which he would never part with, and which still remains in his family; so well done that he himself, at the age of eighty, regretted that he had not given up his whole life to sculpture.

It was then as a sculptor that Michael Angelo first appears to the historical student,--about the year 1492, when Columbus was crossing the great unknown ocean to realize his belief in a western passage to India. Thus commercial enterprise began with the revival of art, and was destined never to be separated in its alliance with it, since commerce brings wealth, and wealth seeks to ornament the palaces and gardens which it has created or purchased.

The sculptor's art was not born until piety had already edifices in which to worship God, or pride the monuments in which it sought the glories of a name; but it made rapid progress as wealth increased and taste became refined; as the need was felt for ornaments and symbols to adorn naked walls and empty spaces, especially statuary, grouped or single, of men or animals,--a marble history to interpret or reproduce consecrated associations. Churches might do without them; the glass stained in every color of the rainbow, the altar shining with gold and silver and precious stones, the pillars multiplied and diversified, and rich in foliated circles, mullions, mouldings, groins, and bosses, and bearing aloft the arched and ponderous roof,--one scene of dazzling magnificence,--these could do without them; but the palaces and halls and houses of the rich required the image of man,--and of man not emaciated and worn and monstrous, but of man as he appeared to the classical Greeks, in the perfection of form and physical beauty. So the artists who arose with the revival of commerce, with the multiplication of human wants and the study of antiquity, sought to restore the buried statues with the long-neglected literature and laws. It was in sculptured marbles that enthusiasm was most marked. These were found in abundance in various parts of Italy whenever the vast debris of the ancient magnificence was removed, and were universally admired and prized by popes, cardinals, and princes, and formed the nucleus of great museums.

The works of Michael Angelo as a sculptor were not numerous, but in sublimity they have never been surpassed,--non multa, sed multum.

His unfinished monument of Julius II., begun at that pontiff's request as a mausoleum, is perhaps his greatest work; and the statue of Moses, which formed a part of it, has been admired for three hundred years. In this, as in his other masterpieces, grandeur and majesty are his characteristics. It may have been a reproduction, and yet it is not a copy. He made character and moral force the first consideration, and form subservient to expression. And here he differed, it is said by great critics, from the ancients, who thought more of form than of moral expression,--as may be seen in the faces of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Belvedere, matchless and inimitable as these statues are in grace and beauty. The Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator are indeed exceptions, for it is character which constitutes their chief merit,--the expression of pain, despair, and agony. But there is almost no intellectual or moral expression in the faces of other famous and remarkable antique statues, only beauty and variety of form, such as Powers exhibited in his Greek Slave,--an inferior excellence, since it is much easier to copy the beautiful in the nude statues which people Italy, than to express such intellectual majesty as Michael Angelo conceived--that intellectual expression which Story has succeeded in giving to his African Sibyl. Thus while the great artist retained the antique, he superadded a loftiness such as the ancients rarely produced; and sculpture became in his hands, not demoralizing and Pagan, resplendent in sensual charms, but instructive and exalting,--instructive for the marvellous display of anatomical knowledge, and exalting from grand conceptions of dignity and power. His knowledge of anatomy was so remarkable that he could work without models. Our artists, in these days, must always have before their eyes some nude figure to copy.

同类推荐
  • 御制题絜斋毛诗经筵讲义

    御制题絜斋毛诗经筵讲义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 赤松子章历

    赤松子章历

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 文穆念禅师语录

    文穆念禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 北磵集

    北磵集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 五事毗婆沙论

    五事毗婆沙论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 猎刃之魔传奇

    猎刃之魔传奇

    他是猎人的翘楚,也是恶魔的领主他是人与魔的结晶,身处光与暗的交界灾难是他的影子,死亡是他的舞曲头顶弑父的恶名的他,比恶魔更加残忍身着紫色的风衣的他,让人类避尤不及一部《魔经》究竟是他的宿命,还是他的噩梦他是烈壬,这是他的传奇
  • 中国网络传播研究2010(第四辑)

    中国网络传播研究2010(第四辑)

    《中国网络传播研究》的创办旨在为研究中国网络传播的学者提供学术讨论的平台,倡导具有科学性和创新价值的传播研究,彰显网络传播研究对传播学的理论贡献,促进传播学者与其他学科的对话。《中国网络传播研究》鼓励以经验性方法研究中国网络传播的基本问题,倡导多学科、全球化视野的传播学术研究,亦致力于为社会提供有价值的相关科学认知。本书是2010年第4辑。
  • 结客少年场行

    结客少年场行

    《结客少年场行》是青年诗人张雷的诗歌选本。书中附录了诗人汪国真、李小雨为他的诗集写的序言,还有原外交部长李肇星先生为此书出版写的贺词,贺词说“从张诗字里行间看,他胸怀祖国,腹含宇宙;纵涉古今,横跨内外;时而悲壮,时而缠绵……相当难得”。
  • 至尊高手都市行

    至尊高手都市行

    一个神秘少年,带着无与论比的气势,踏上了都市生活之路。美女校花,御姐,萝莉,警花,美妇,应有尽有。本书有点YY,霸气的主角,且看他如何一步步的征服这个世界新人新书,敬请多多支持。拜谢
  • 古荒神龙决

    古荒神龙决

    奇遇!修炼!暴富!这才是真正的主角光环!当然!更少不了艳遇……
  • 橡皮:中国先锋文学.3

    橡皮:中国先锋文学.3

    这是中国当前最有写作才华的作者队伍,每一个人都那样特立独行、不拘常规、又敏锐多情。 翻开《橡皮:中国先锋文学》,您将由他们带领,走进中国先锋文学大本营,领略目前中国文学最前沿的动态,关于当下中国先锋文学,无论是题材、文本结构,还是语言才华和思想张力,您都将有一个全新的认识,获得一次丰富的精神滋养。
  • 不安定的生命

    不安定的生命

    不安定的生命,演奏出重逢与离别,前世与今生。一次又一次的轮回,想保住你单纯的笑容,不断的重复,那笑容却已经不在了。
  • 刀剑情侠

    刀剑情侠

    世人笑我太疯癫,我笑他人看不穿。明明可以做皇帝,偏偏要行走江湖。问君能几多愁,恰似一江春水向东流,明明说好不相负,可他却皈依,从此只叹琴诗予了谁……
  • 废柴逆天:妖孽夫君别惹我

    废柴逆天:妖孽夫君别惹我

    她,为身上背负的血海深仇而生,没日没夜的修炼,只是为了报家族被灭,亲人惨死在自己眼前之仇。”弃我,伤我,毁我,我会让你付出你永远都无法想象的代价。“重生,一个修炼界的天才却偏偏跟个牛皮糖似的黏着她。”娘子,我这辈子跟定你了,你再也逃不掉了。不对,是生生世世赖上你了!~~~~“”在我没发怒前,快滚~~“
  • 寒水梦

    寒水梦

    一个娇小女生和一个帅气富家公子的爱恋。。