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Published: August 17th 2009
Piazza Vecchio in Florece
The shadow statue is of Perseus holding up Medusa's severed head. You can see Fake David's tiny head in the lower right corner.In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace -- and what did they produce? The Cuckoo Clock.
-Orson Welles
I like this quote because to me sums up the reality of the artistic temperament. In order to produce great art you have to go to the extremes of emotion. You have to be inspired and possess the arrogant belief that your vision is valuable, not just to yourself but to others. That your taste is that of an artist. You must withstand criticism from people like me who just refuse to admit that a dead palm tree on the floor is a work of art. Even if it is to other people. The kind of culture that cultivates great artists is one in which the people look for beauty in the world around them. Contentment and complacency does not lend itself to artistic expression.
Like any important thing in life a work of art requires sacrifice. Time, effort, skill, and money are all basic ingredients in any
crafted item. Think of how much work it must have been to chisel a fourteen foot David out of one solid chunk of marble. Imagine even finding the room to work on a 14 foot piece of marble. There are always obstacles in your path; good reasons to stop and claim its not worth the effort. A million reasons why you should do something else, something easier. In this way it is alot like taking a long trip. It is so much easier to stick with your routine and continue doing the same thing everyday than to try to create something better. So much easier to stay home in your comfort zone than to pick up and go.
Michelangelo believed that God put images in stone and a sculptor's job was merely to liberate those images from the surrounding stone. An interesting idea although I wonder if he would think it coincidental that God put Christian images in Italian stones and Buddhist images in Asian stones and Greek Gods in Greek stones or if that would have merely supported his theory.
It seems to me that besides art, the Italians know how to prioritize. Or at least they are willing
Michelangelo's Night and Day sculptures
In the Medici Chapel. Personally I think Night looks like a man with oranges on his chest. It makes me doubt that Michelangelo ever saw a real woman naked. Not that I am complaining; he knew what kind of beauty was important. to sacrifice for what they think is important. Like this policy of shutting down their business for a week or two in August. Business owners will close thier place of business for two weeks every summer in order to go on vacation. They sacrifice two weeks of revenue in order to give themselves and their employees a break. I don't know of any other place that does such a thing. Certainly not where I come from. Where I work the only day we shut down is for Christmas.
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Bob Carlsen
non-member comment
Creative Inspiration
I agree with much of what you have said about the environment for artistic inspiration. However, recently before going to China I read two books by Gavin Menzies titled "1421" and "1434." The first presented compeling evidence of Chinese fleets discovering most of the world in 1421. The second presented equallly compeling evidence of a final journey of one fleet to Venice, and then overland to Florence where the Chinese admiral presented 11000 documents containing 4000 years of Chinese knowledge. The author's premise is that this infusion of knowledge started the Renaissance...that Leonardo was just copying Chinese inventions. So maybe Michelangelo's god was Chinese! So much of our history is Eurocentric (and as a female you might add male centric), so it's interesting to get a different spin. You don't have to believe it, but it's a very interesting read...when you are bored on long flights or train rides. My son flies to Rome next Tuesday for his last two years of university...I envy him!