Why I love the work of Michelangelo:
Quotes
- Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
- I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.
- Critique by creating
- The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
- Your greatness is measured by your horizons.
- No great work of art is ever finished.
Quotes on Michelangelo
- No one who has not seen the Sistine Chapel can have a clear idea of what a human being can achieve. … The master’s inner security and strength, his greatness is beyond all description. … At the moment I am so engrossed by Michelangelo that even Nature makes no appeal to me, for my vision is so small compared with his. If there were only some means of fixing such pictures in one’s soul!
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1786, as quoted in Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture: Complete Edition by Ludwig Goldscheider (Phaidon, 1975 [1953])
My thoughts
Physiology
The look of fear, anxiety, but also focus.
Simplest economy of visual expression, force, and power.
Human body as apex beauty
