Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo was very talented in many fields of art. One is able to see a relationship between his art and his poetry due to its realistic aspects. People who are acquainted with his art and poetry are able to understand his emotions and ideas.

Michelangelo was the greatest living artist of his time. Michelangelo focuses on topics of life. In his poems he discusses categories pertaining to love, death, evil and good, beauty, and women. The first is the fault the artist finds in his ability to be both a poet and painter. He is faced with which one he loves better. In the second poem he faces death, which is not necessarily his own life but his life as either painter or poet. His writing is similar to his art in that every word is carved into the realities of life. David is an example of how deep his words can hit someone reading his poems from the sleek, smooth facial features to the rough tree trunk he is leaning against. Michelangelo invites you top feel the emotion or visualize the image of what he is trying to describe to the reader and in that you will end up analyzing his work. With David you are captivated by the seriousness on his face and his muscular features. Both are enticing and interesting to observe and analyze and I believe Michelangelo does this on purpose.

Michelangelo was an artist who thought very highly of himself and believed he had a gift from god; that only by his had he can release a masterpiece within the block of marble. In his poems, "Every conception that a man can find" and “On the Brink of Death”, connects with this belief very well. In the first line of the first poem, it says this belief;"Every conception that a man can find is in the stone itself, already there concealed in excess, but will still require a hand to free it that obeys the mind." When Michelangelo created his famous work "David", he believed that David was already within the marble and only his hands can release the masterpiece.

In his poem, “Every conception that man can find”, he talks about a man in love with a woman, but at the same time entertaining some fears due to the two sides of the woman -good and evil - Perhaps, the man in question is Michelangelo himself., in his poem “Every conception that a man can find", we find him talking about a "lady without a peer “who has the "good I want and the pain I fear". This lady obviously is dead and he has to build a tomb for her. Thus, whatever a man conceives is already in "the stone itself", but it is "conceal in excess" and it will take a lot of work, skill and a "hand that obeys the mind to free it". He wishes he could build something better for her rather than a tomb and so he says "though I effect the opposite of my design", he has no choice than to build that tomb since she is already dead and his skill cannot be put to any better use because "there my skill cannot discover anything but death" and so he has to build that tomb. Thus, he conceives of this lady hiding behind the stone and even his skill cannot bring her out because there is nothing to discover than death.

In the poem “On the Brink of Death”, Michelangelo describes life as a “stormy sea”.