Q - Michelangelo
Posted on 24th January 2021
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni 1475 – 1564 was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet during the Renaissance period. He is considered to be one of the greatest influences on Western Art.
‘The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection’
‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free’
‘From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born’
‘The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has’
‘What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognise the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?’
‘It is necessary to keep one’s compass in one’s eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges’
‘Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle’
‘Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven’
‘I live and love in God’s peculiar light’
‘If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all’
‘Genius is eternal patience’
‘Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture’
‘My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness’
‘There is no greater harm than that of time wasted’
‘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’
‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it’
‘The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows’
‘A man paints with his brains and not with his hands’
‘I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all’
‘A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as failing to hear and see it’
‘I am a poor man and of little worth, who is labouring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible’
‘Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we are all come’
‘If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master’
‘Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish’
‘The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; only the sculptor’s hand can break the spell to free the figures slumbering in the stone’
‘It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand’
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