Michelangelo: Sculptor

Michelangelo — scuptor, architect, painter, poet and artist par excellence — was seen by his contemporaries as embodying the zenith of all artistic achievement. The book sets out to bring his genius closer and to make it more understandable. Here one can see details of his work in full-page pictures, many of which have been produced especially for the book. Michelangelo was the greatest sculptor who ever lived, recognised by his contemporaries as a genius and canonised even before his death. But this does help us either in understanding or approaching his work. Part of the difficulty lies in his complicated and demanding character which, after five centuries, is hard for the modern reader to penetrate. The grandeur of his oeuvre, its power, its uncompromising strength, often blinds the spectator to the details and the problems of the works themselves. Michelangelo was a perfectionist, and with every work he strove to solve artistic problems; however, when he arrived at the solution to that problem, he often lost interest. As a result, he left more sculptures unfinished than finished, as this book demonstrates. The rich world of Michelangelo becomes fresh and alive as we see the physical embodiment of the spirit struggling to escape from its marble prison. Some call this a 'romantic' concept. It is certainly a magnificent one — superbly displayed.