DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0393
5564] ARCHITECT, SCULPTOR, AND PAINTER 339
ately-striving, much-suffering soul. No artist felt the
joy and glory of life more keenly, no one was more
oppressed with a sense of its weariness and misery.
His own life was one long tragedy of broken hopes
and frustrated purposes. But from boyhood to old
age his mighty powers were devoted with unswerving
constancy to the service of art, and in spite of
hindrances and disappointments he fulfilled the end
of life, and revealed himself in a series of great and
heroic conceptions.
Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was a many-sided
genius, and three supreme conceptions—the frescoes
of the Sistine Chapel, the Medici tombs, and the
Dome of St. Peter—remain to prove his skill as
architect, sculptor, and painter. But, unlike his
great rival, sculpture and not painting was the form
in which he preferred to express his thoughts.
Painting, as he told Pope Julius II., was not his
trade, and in all his letters from Rome, he signed
himself “Michelangelo, scultore” as if to emphasise
this statement. “ Let the whole world know I
am not a painter,” are the words with which
he ends one of his sonnets, in which the same
conviction is expressed. His paintings tell the
same story. All their finest qualities, their masterly
design, vigorous modelling, and admirable relief,
betray the sculptor’s hand, and show the same
passion for plastic beauty. In later years his en-
thusiasm for science and marvellous knowledge of
anatomy led him to crowd his frescoes with exagger-
ated gestures and distorted attitudes. He neglected
beauty for strength, and allowed force to degenerate
into brutality. But in spite of these obvious defects,
ately-striving, much-suffering soul. No artist felt the
joy and glory of life more keenly, no one was more
oppressed with a sense of its weariness and misery.
His own life was one long tragedy of broken hopes
and frustrated purposes. But from boyhood to old
age his mighty powers were devoted with unswerving
constancy to the service of art, and in spite of
hindrances and disappointments he fulfilled the end
of life, and revealed himself in a series of great and
heroic conceptions.
Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was a many-sided
genius, and three supreme conceptions—the frescoes
of the Sistine Chapel, the Medici tombs, and the
Dome of St. Peter—remain to prove his skill as
architect, sculptor, and painter. But, unlike his
great rival, sculpture and not painting was the form
in which he preferred to express his thoughts.
Painting, as he told Pope Julius II., was not his
trade, and in all his letters from Rome, he signed
himself “Michelangelo, scultore” as if to emphasise
this statement. “ Let the whole world know I
am not a painter,” are the words with which
he ends one of his sonnets, in which the same
conviction is expressed. His paintings tell the
same story. All their finest qualities, their masterly
design, vigorous modelling, and admirable relief,
betray the sculptor’s hand, and show the same
passion for plastic beauty. In later years his en-
thusiasm for science and marvellous knowledge of
anatomy led him to crowd his frescoes with exagger-
ated gestures and distorted attitudes. He neglected
beauty for strength, and allowed force to degenerate
into brutality. But in spite of these obvious defects,