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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CLXXXIV.

JULY, 1859.

ART. I.1. The Life of Michel Angelo Buonarroti, with Translations of many of his Poems and Letters. Also Memoirs of Savonarola, Raphael, and Vittoria Colonna. By JOHN S. HARFORD. In 2 vols. London. 1857.

2. Life of Michel Angelo. By R. DUPPA. Bohn's Illustrated Library.

3. Rime e Prose di MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI, Pittore, Scul tore, Architetto, e Poeta Fiorentino. Milan. 1821.

THE fame of Michel Angelo towers above that of all modern rivals as loftily as Mont Blanc, with its crown of eternal snow, overlooks the hills that encircle it and the plains that lie at its feet. So mighty is his intellectual power, so severe and majestic is his moral grandeur, so intense is the pure light which surrounds him, that we shrink with awe from the attempt to analyze his nature or measure his stature. But as the lofty mountain reveals its whole wealth and beauty only to him who climbs its side or mines its depths, so is the character of a true hero the more impressive, the more closely it is studied. We shall therefore accept the opportunity which a new biography offers, to pay our tribute of reverence to a soul so great and so rich that the oft-repeated theme can never be exhausted.

Notwithstanding the almost divine honor which was paid to Michel Angelo by his contemporaries, and which succeeding generations have fully sanctioned, his character is too often misunderstood, and his works are misjudged. No adequate - NO. 184.

VOL. LXXXIX.

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biography of him has yet been written. While he yet lived, his friends Vasari and Condivi wrote their accounts of his life and works; but, although highly entertaining and valuable, these biographies abound in obvious errors, and fail to present his life in its just proportions. Succeeding writers have drawn their facts mainly from these authors, correcting gross anachronisms, and adding such slight incidents as could be gleaned from the records of that period.

Mr. Harford has endeavored to supply the existing want, by giving us a picture of the great artist in the midst of his associates, influenced by the spirit of his age and its leading men, and reacting upon them. He is the first biographer who has recognized the value of the poems as affording a key to Michel Angelo's character, and as indicating the growth of his intellectual and religious life. We are grateful to him for this attempt, and for the amount of valuable information which he has collected; yet we think he has rather smoothed the way towards the preparation of a good biography than written one. His story is encumbered with too many episodes, which break the thread of the narrative, and destroy the unity of impression. His readers might be supposed to be already sufficiently familiar with the leading facts in the lives of Raphael, Perugino, and Leonardo da Vinci. The connection of Michel Angelo with Savonarola seems too slight to justify the large space which he occupies in the book, although the notice of him is full of interest. With better judgment the author has assigned a distinct place to the life and writings of the distinguished Vittoria Colonna, whose relation to Michel Angelo required more than a brief notice. A graver defect in the book is the strong prominence given by the author to his own theological views, and his effort to force the expressions of his hero into more meaning than they naturally bear. Slight inaccuracies of translation and defects of style are less important. On the whole, we shall find it a good guide to the study of Michel Angelo's life and writings, although we shall not deem it prudent to ignore other authorities in connection with it.

In intellectual force Michel Angelo was probably unsurpassed by any man of modern times. In sculpture, which he claimed as his true sphere, no modern artist has approached

him, and if he has not all the perfect grace and beauty which belong to the finest period of Grecian art, still he is no unsuccessful imitator of the Greeks, but an originator of his own path. In strong individual expression, in the language of the soul, he rises higher than any ancient sculptor. He was not Greek in constitution or in temperament. He strove to soar beyond limitations,—to realize conceptions too vast for a mortal to execute.

"Above the visible form he strives to seek

Ideal Form, the universal mould";

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while Grecian art affected moderation and quiet, and accepted the conditions and limitations of matter. In the massive forms and masterly action of his Day and Night, in the immense reserved force expressed in his Prisoners, we see his wonderful creative power. Overcoming the reluctance of a sensitive nature to the process of dissection,- for at first he shrank from it like a girl, he gave twelve years to the study of anatomy, dissecting with his own hand not only human bodies, but animals, especially the horse, until, according to Condivi, "his knowledge of human anatomy and of other animals was so correct, that those who had all their lives studied it as their profession hardly understood the subject so well." With this perfect knowledge of the structure of the human body, and his reverence for this temple of God, he seemed to have an entire command of the frame for the purpose of expression, either in action or repose. He designed it with the most astonishing freedom, exactness, and rapidity. In sculpture, he often worked at once upon the marble from a small model, with but few of those mechanical aids or measurements which are indispensable to less skilful artists, and expedient for all. An eyewitness, Blasio di Vignere, thus describes his method of working:

“I may say that I have seen Michel Angelo at work after he had passed his sixtieth year; and although he was not very robust, he cut away as many scales from a block of very hard marble in a quarter of an hour, as three young sculptors would have effected in three or four hours, a thing almost incredible to one who has not actually witnessed it. Such was the impetuosity and fire with which he pursued his labor, that I almost thought the whole work must have gone to pieces. With a single stroke he brought down fragments three or four fingers thick, and so close upon his mark, that, had he passed it even in the slightest

degree, there would have been danger of ruining the whole, since any such injury, unlike the case of works in plaster or stucco, would have been irreparable."

In this manner the figures of slaves or prisoners for the sepulchre of Pope Julius were executed. But even this great man was not entirely safe in pursuing so hazardous a method. He sometimes cut too deeply, or did not allow room enough for his design, which was the cause of his leaving many unfinished works.

It is said that the jealousy of his enemies, who wished to show his inferiority to Raphael, excited Julius II. to command Michel Angelo to paint the Sistine Chapel in fresco. Certain it is that the artist accepted the task with reluctance, declaring that painting was not his province, and that Raphael was the man above all others the best qualified for the undertaking. He had already, however, given such proofs of his skill in design, in the famous Cartoon of Pisa, that the Pope, fortunately for the world, persisted in his demand. Although at first discouraged by a failure in his work caused by the state of the plaster, he finally succeeded, and the splendid result is well known. That whole grand hierarchy of prophets and sibyls was the work of his lofty imagination. For grandeur of conception and sublimity of expression they stand unrivalled in the world. As Allston has said of them, they seem like beings of another sphere, such as a poetic nature might imagine to be the inhabitants of the planet Saturn. The artist who created these exalted and glorious forms was he who knew thoroughly all the details of the anatomy of the human frame. How vain is the fear of little minds, that knowledge should clip the wings of genius, or science chill the imagination of the artist!

It is in this branch of art alone that we can compare Raphael with Michel Angelo. It is a parallel full of instruction and interest. So entirely genuine and elevated was the art of each, that both must gain by the comparison. Raphael seems to us wider in his range of expression, more fertile in invention, more varied and pleasing. If others have surpassed him in some single quality, no one has equalled him in the harmonious combination of all excellences. In none do we find strength and tenderness so happily blended. He sometimes approaches Michel Angelo in sublimity, as in his Sibyls and his Transfigu

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