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The moment chosen is that in which the Lord says, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, and the idea and even attributes of the principal figure are taken from Orcagna's old painting in the Campo Santo. But with all Michael Angelo's advantages, he has by no means improved on the original idea.
Each, certainly, had a hand of iron; whether Pope Julius wore a velvet glove or no, I do not know; I rather think not, for, if I remember rightly, he boxed Michael Angelo's ears for giving him a saucy answer. We cannot fancy Mr. Darwin boxing any one's ears; indeed there can be no doubt he wore a very thick velvet glove, but the hand underneath it was none the less of iron.
Part of his black hair had been shorn away, and one eye was nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel sabre-cut so marred that portion of his face, that, when I saw it, I felt as if a fine medal had been suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking type of human suffering and wrong than Michel Angelo's bronze prisoner.
From time to time Julius climbed the scaffold and inspected the painter's progress. Dreading lest death should come before the work were finished, he kept crying, "When will you make an end?" "When I can," answered the painter. "You seem to want," rejoined the petulant old man, "that I should have you thrown down from the scaffold." Then Michael Angelo's brush stopped.
He loved to paint large figures, full of light, but not merely made up of lights and cast shadows, like the impressionists; rather definite figures that had a certain luminous quality, like some of Michael Angelo's people. And these he fitted into a landscape, in what he thought true proportion. He worked a great deal from memory, using everybody he knew.
"Child," said Rienzi, pointing to the dead, "blessed art thou who hast no blood of kindred to avenge! to him who hath, sooner or later comes the hour; and an awful hour it is!" The words sank deep into Angelo's heart, and in after life became words of fate to the speaker and the listener.
"Yes, history tells us that he held that position for three years; but judging from the work of both, I should say that not much was either taught or learned. Ghirlandajo's work possesses great strength, as does Michael Angelo's, but on wholly different lines.
I don't love anything of Michael Angelo's, but I am compelled to look and study. I came here this morning only to refresh my memory of one of those faces" she pointed to the lower part of the Last Judgment "and yet the face is dreadful to me." She found that he was smiling, and abruptly she added the question: "Do you love that picture?" "Why, no; but I often delight in it.
"It is the magnitude of Michael Angelo's conceptions that puts him among the very first of painters; and it is the conception of these frescoes that makes them the most notable paintings in the world. We must dwell on this for a moment.
Now while the last is undoubtedly true, I believe that the first is not only not true, but that it is proved to be so by Rodin's own procedure and utterances, and that, if we understand his case aright, it is for beauty alone that he lives. He has related his search for the secret of Michael Angelo's design, and how he found it in the rhythm of two planes rather than four, the Greek composition.
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