Michelangelo Quotes (1475-1564)

“The stone unhewn and cold Becomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes The more the statue grows.”

“With chiseled touch The stone unhewn and cold Becomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes, The more the statue grows.”

“The photographer in Blow-Up, who is not a philosopher, wants to see things closer up. But it so happens that, by enlarging too far, the object itself decomposes and disappears. Hence there's a moment in which we grasp reality, but then the moment passes. This was in part the meaning of Blow-Up.”

“I didn't like university life much at Bologna. The subjects I studied - economics and business administration - didn't interest me. I wanted to make films. I was glad when I was graduated. Yet it's odd; on graduation day, I was overcome with a terrible sadness. I realized that my youth was over and now the struggle had begun.”

“Italians have such illustrious people they can celebrate, that everyone celebrates — Michelangelo, Vivaldi and, of course, for us on the left, Sacco and Vanzetti.”

“Do we not say that the judicious discovering of a most lovely Statua in a piece of Marble, hath sublimated the wit of Buonarruotti far above the vulgar wits of other men? And yet this work is onely the imitation of a meer aptitude and disposition of exteriour and superficial mem­bers of an immoveable man; but what is it in comparison of a man made by nature, composed of as many exteriour and inte­riour members, of so many muscles, tendons, nerves, bones, which serve to so many and sundry motions? but what shall we say of the senses, and of the powers of the soul, and lastly, of the understanding? May we not say, and that with reason, that the structure of a Statue falls far short of the formation of a living man, yea more of a contemptible worm?”

“Interviewer: The examination of two emotional journeys, namely those concerning the artist's relationships with Tommaso de' Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna, proved to be very interesting. Graziella Magherini: Buonarroti dedicated some very beautiful sonnets to Tommaso, written in the Neoplatonic style, with a refined sensitivity that was an integral part of Florentine Humanism. However, psychoanalytic observation reveals clear homoerotic feelings, albeit disguised. The comparison with the drawings that the artist gave to the young man is extraordinary. I am referring to The Rape of Ganymede, The Punishment of Titus and The Bacchanalia of the Putti. These are truly eloquent works. There are two versions of ‘Ganymede’: in the first, Ganymede resists Zeus in an ambivalent mix of desire and fear, while in the second he offers himself in sweet abandon, in an attitude pervaded by ecstasy and bliss. In The Punishment of Titus, the protagonist, struck by the eagle, becomes a metaphor for Michelangelo's sense of guilt. But even more extraordinary is the drawing with the Bacchanalia of the Putti. Here we are faced with an expression of regressed levels. Naked children linger in bacchanalia, dragging a dead deer here, carrying a pig there; a child urinates in a wine jug; young people are lost, without dignity... In the lower part of the work, the contrast is striking. There is a naked man sleeping uncovered, in an atmosphere of profound sadness, in a pose that closely resembles, for example, the Drunken Moses in the istine Chapel; and there is a hideous female satyr with flaccid breasts. What emerges clearly is a depressed paternal role on the one hand, and a sense of emptied motherhood on the other, in an almost phallic mother figure that combines the male and female roles. In short, the drawings are direct, sensorial: unlike the sonnets, which, as I mentioned, also contain an underlying materiality of the flesh.”

“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!”