MICHELANGELO *
Ivan Meštrović
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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXIV, 1983, pages 7-22 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America,
Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by
permission. All reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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I think that scarcely any artist who is capable of understanding Michelangelo
can be satisfied with any of the biographies devoted to him. Despite all
the respect shown to him by all who have written about him, we artists always
have the feeling that his work is not displayed in its real greatness: he is
greater and more complicated than any of these books would suggest. We have
however no idea of depreciating the admirable work of many who have written
studies of the great Italian. But just as with all great work there is much
pain and effort in the process of creation, so it is to a somewhat lesser
degree in the case of great men, when their work comes to be interpreted. It
certainly seems to me that I shall not go wrong in doubting whether a complete
work can ever be written on Michelangelo by a savant without the help of
an artist, or by an artist without the help of a savant. The former
holds all too much to the external facts and "realities" and events
which have to be recorded, while the latter relies in the main upon his
imagination and attempts a subjective reconstruction. Hence men of the pen are
seldom capable of seeing what is behind and above the works, or that which lies
on the other side of them, and to which the artist has more or less succeeded
in imparting a material form. They simply lack the sense which would enable them
to feel this: they lack the torch of fantasy by which, through the work before
them, they might kindle in it that original something which was before its
author as he worked. And the artist, on the other hand, lacks so many other
necessary elements, above all, the time and patience for an exhaustive study,
and the habit of expressing his meaning by the written word. Thus a middle way
must be found, and the savant must consult the artist: for it can be
said of the artist, if of anybody, that he has an inward hidden world of his
own, which is much more important than the world outside, at least so far as
his creative power is concerned.
Even though there is no doubt
that the artist, like every other man, is influenced by the material and moral
circumstances of his milieu, and by his own personal circumstances, and
that these affect his outlook on the world and his imagination, yet this
influence, in substance, does not play the decisive role, and certain figures,
at least in their main activities, stand outside the direct influence of the
age and circumstances in which they live. This might be said to be truer of Michelangelo
than of any other man.
These few words make no
pretence of being an infallible guide to Michelangelo's work: they are merely
intended as a warning to those specially interested in it, not to accept as
final what is written in the standard books on Michelangelo: but
to endeavour to understand, appreciate and feel him for themselves. If they
should find in this essay anything which will facilitate their comprehension of
the great master, I shall be amply satisfied. Personally I have so high
an opinion of Michelangelo that I hardly dare to write
about him. If I none the less do so, it is only to salve my conscience for
great and frequent enjoyment as I stood before his works. Hence in reality it
is not so much about him that I venture to write, as about my own feelings and
observations, as called forth by his works. Besides, I am writing this, not so
much for men of the pen as for our younger generation of artists, as a short
study on one of the greatest plastic artists since the Golden Age of Greece. I
feel the more bound to do this because the worm of decadence, which has so long
gnawed at the ancient tree of Western culture, has also begun to attack the
roots of our own young school of artists. In directing the eyes of our healthy
youth towards this gigantic figure, I could wish that it should not merely
shine out before them by its power and its skill, but that they should convince
themselves how mistaken they are, how they are guilty of desecrating the
innermost shrine of culture, when in their perversity they imitate later
sculptors of almost negro savagery in the same sort of
way as their contemporaries who enjoy "negro" music
after Beethoven. Personally, I should be the last to impose barriers or to
confuse the minds of our younger artists by a nationalist or even Chauvinist
outlook (though I have sometimes been accused of this). On the contrary,
however small we may be, I could have wished to give wings to their
inspiration, to bid them stretch out beyond our frontiers, since all humanity
is but a single world. The healthy, young and active (taking no thought for
"what they shall put on") must replace the old, tired and ill - that
is their duty. But they must not outstep the goal. They must begin from
themselves, and out of themselves.
Everyone holds to what he
has, and he must do so, so long as it is good and healthy. We have our
heroism-a heroism hitherto in the primitive and narrow sense of the word, but
which still means audacity and strength. I believe that our race too will one
day produce types of heroes such as were St. Francis, Galileo, Michelangelo
and others, and that our nation will understand that they too were
heroes and indeed heroes of a higher type. We are not cutting ourselves off
from the rest of mankind, when we believe in ourselves, but continue to believe
in mankind as a whole: and in the same way, humanity, however much its
individual parts may be worn out, remains as a whole full of power and capacity
for renewal, and the active must step into the places of the tired. This
carrying on must begin at the point where the best, not the most inferior, have
left off: though even the inferior are not always a proof of exhaustion or
weariness, but are often the consequence of satiety, of affectation, of
production en gros, with artificial digging through strata that are not
yet ripe beneath the surface. Our civilisation is to native barbarism as a ship
to the ocean, whose surface it merely skims. Let us consider and learn who and
whence are those who bring monstrosity into "hallowed centres", and
for what reasons they are tolerated and accepted there! When all that is clear,
we shall quickly come to ourselves and turn to the true path. The new democracy
is a flooding of the world with barbarism, which easily accepts material
civilisation, but kills spiritual culture-which levels instead of lifting. But
it is not my present purpose to discuss the reasons for the decadence of to-day
nor to consider how far it reaches. I merely wished to say that in the field of
pictorial art we are in a state of great decadence, but that that is not a
reason for despairing or losing faith in recovery.
What we do here upon earth is
but a first trial of the wings of our soul, which though not eternal, bears
traces of immortal being. The wings of Michelangelo's soul were stronger, their
beat was more powerful, and therefore his works were greater and more enduring.
This thought immediately recalls to our mind the Vatican Torso, and bids us
compare it with Michelangelo himself, who was so full of
affection for it. As this torso, defying the ravages of time, lost legs and
arms and yet remained beautiful and strong, so it will be with the works of Michelangelo.
Of the greater of these there will remain a torso to the most distant
ages, while of the lesser nothing is left even within measurable time: the
former first lose their fingers, then their arms and legs, but the torso is
indestructible, while with the latter it is the torso that is broken first.
That is just the difference between one kind of work and another. One must be
in love with eternity, before one can produce a work that is even a shadow of
that eternity. Immortality is confined within us as in a prison, we must give
it to the light and bring it into harmony with what is immortal around us and
above us. That is inspiration, the Muse, revelation.
Love for eternity is
sacrifice, and sacrifice is the search for the eternal. Evil passes, and good passes,
but bliss is eternal, and eternity is God. To struggle against evil is the best
prayer to God: but to struggle for the beautiful is to sing to His glory. It is
written that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was of God, but it is
not said whether this word was first spoken or engraved. Certainly Art dates
from a time when the word had not yet been separated from the work, or prayer,
from wisdom and song. True artistic effort must be at once a song and a prayer,
and its contents should stand outside dimensions or time. It should reveal what
others do not know or see, and not merely imitate what others see and know
superficially. It should reveal the truth as it really is, not merely as it
appears.
Before we actually turn to
Michelangelo's work, I feel it is necessary to throw out certain general
observations on the art of Sculpture, its manner of execution and the chief
elements which contribute to it. I feel this to be all the more necessary,
since it is chiefly from this angle that I propose to treat his work, both
because it seems to me important and because it has not yet been adequately
attempted.
What we call " the Fine
Arts" -architecture, sculpture and painting- consist of two elements, the
material and the spiritual. The one is visible, the other invisible, and they
consequently present a strong contrast to each other. But an object of this
kind only exists for us when these two elements combine; for matter, however
real it may be, does not exist in the form of a building or a statue until it
is grafted on, and fructified by, that opposite element: just as a work of the
spirit exists inside the brain which has given it birth, but does not exist in
the eyes of others until it has assumed material form. When we say that a work
of arts is harmonius, perfect, or some similar phrase, this is another way of
saying that it consists of two elements intimately depended on each other, and
thus giving us a precise idea of what this plastic object represents. What else
could these elements be save the two already mentioned, namely the spiritual
and the material? In academic language this is called "harmony of
line" and "of form", as though the line itself meant something,
or as though it were something other than the contour of form, or again as if
form meant something in itself, apart from life or spiritual expression. I
repeat, then, that in every object it is harmony or discord -between the
spiritual and the material in the first instance, which in plastic art means,
between light and shade-that form the language of expression in this branch of
art.
If that is really the
language, it will be said, how can we learn it, and by what measure can we
determine the light and the shade, so that the one may balance the other? Is it
to be measured by the size of area of the one or the other? Are they to be in
equal proportions or not? And what rule are we to apply? Painting is the best
proof that the language of figurative art is light and shade, but while in this
art the proportion of light and shade remains unchanged, with architecture and
sculpture as real plastic art, that is not so. In their case the proportion and
position of light and shade change according to the intensity of light and the
movement of the sun, and also according to whether the particular object is
moveable or not, and in the former case according to the light at a given
moment. This then is only part of the truth, that in experiment and labour lies
the just proportion between the two elements, and hence the harmony of the work
itself: but the major part of the truth lies in the idea which was in embryo
before the work was taken in hand. Indeed it might be said that the idea itself
carries within it both elements from a previous state, and that with the idea
we are already too much in the concrete, and losing consciousness of its
origin. The work, then, in its first germ-before the creative impulse appears
in its author, and before he is conscious of the need for creating-already has
a tendency which is the decisive factor at the moment both of conception and of
realisation. It would therefore pass through three stages-the first, nebulous,
in the germ; the second in the idea (which would correspond to the embryo); and
the third in the actual achievement, which would correspond to birth. It has
then its period of inward growth, which may be short or may last for several
years. In the first stage it is anticipated, in the second it is felt and seen
with the inward eye, in the third it is realised and reveals itself ˇto
the material senses.
Those other eyes -whose home
we know not and which may be called the eyes of the soul- are far more
important and play a greater role than our seeing eyes, both in the immaterial
act of creation and in the material act of achievement. To the reader this last
assertion will perhaps seem impossible, but I will try briefly to make it
clear, by instancing a few facts from the period of achievement. Those other
eyes, which in this case are called the imagination, have the final work
continually before them, even though it is invisible to these eyes of ours,
because it still has no form. For instance, the sculptor has in front of him
his block of stone or wood, or whatever it may be, and sees in pit the figure
which he wants to carve, even before he has touched the block with his chisel
and before it bears the faintest resemblance to the future work. And he sees it
not only in its main lines, but quite clear-cut: he sees it not only on the
side from which he is looking at the block, but from the back also. This means
logically, that the act of creation has already taken place, in all its
harmony, without participation of hand or eye, and that it is now merely a
question of the statue throwing off its veil of matter and standing exposed to
the light. Let us take yet another example to show that those other eyes are
the real directive force, and these eyes of ours merely its apprentices. While
one chisels or carves, the instrument really has to cut through a thick
untransparent material before these eyes of ours are able to see: it is those
other eyes -in this case a feeling for the plastic- that are the directive
force. Consequently, those other eyes determine both light and shade, before
either of these elements really forces itself through the material shell. Our human
eyes take note of this and communicate with those other eyes -in this case one
might say, with the intellect- which make sure whether everything corresponds
with what they see.
From what
has been said it seems to me clear that for the true artist there can be no
rule, and that what is really essential in art cannot be learnt. Each
individual must ask himself whether he has those other eyes. Meanwhile pit is
true that our human eyes serve as assistants to the others, in so far as their
powers of observation help the others to give concrete form to the idea: but
without invisible eyes there can, we are convinced, be illustration but no real
art, such as presents a picture of the spiritual life. Those eyes of the soul
perhaps penetrate beyond our ken, into the sphere of an earlier ancestral
existence, in which by a natural law two currents are constantly meeting at a
single point and once more separating, thus making an unbroken chain. Neither
our knowledge nor our experience nor our fantasy are personal acquisitions, won
by us in our own lifetime, but are inherited. This heritage may be called
unconscious memory, the recalling of what we already knew, the feeling of what
we had already felt.
Thus far we have been trying
to give a brief explanation of how the work develops and grows, from its first
embryo onwards: but of the cause of that embryo we have as yet said nothing,
nor of its quality and influence. As to the embryo itself we can only surmise,
for it is beyond the reach both of our thought and of our senses. Perhaps the
quality of the work has been affected (in the stage which lies outside the
senses) by thoughts, wishes and feelings of which we are entirely unconscious,
and which come to us from our ancestors -their merits and their defects alike.
In what manner, and how much of the one or of the other, we do not know. While
it has not as yet assumed concrete shape (we say, while it is still in
the process of thought), it is nebulous even to the author himself, and he is
only half conscious of it. When it is formed -though still in an immaterial
form- the main concern of its author is to endow it with a visible form. That
is as it were an instinct. And when it has assumed visible form, its author is
perhaps less able than anyone to explain all the threads which go to make up
the cause.
It goes without saying that
it is still more difficult to explain the cause-just as it would be difficult
to explain the cause of our existence and "coming" into the world,
that is, our assumption of physical forms. By observation and thought we can
convince ourselves that spirit and matter are indissoluble, so that by
following the spiritual train of thought we could reach the conclusion that
matter, or again, that spirit, does not exist. Either view is a sacrilegious
error. The idea is a form of divine nature, and the visible form its portrait.
Form and idea, lofty thought and the visible manifestation of nature in God are
two aspects of the same thing. Consequently the true artistic conception, in
its essence, most resembles the natural conception. Its cause is a mystery, as
is our life, and its source is the same. This means that side by side with the
need for affirming this human life of ours there goes a spiritual affirmation
also. This is the voice, the poem, of spiritual life, and at the same time of
physical life; and it, like life itself, assumes a form, so as to become
comprehensible to our physical being. It bears witness to the fact that
humanity as a whole is eternal, however transient the individual may be.
Meanwhile, the development of
the idea is clearer to us after it has taken corporal shape. Its source of
being, in which it took shape before it ever began to live for our mind and
senses, consists of the earliest personal memories which come to us from those senses,
and especially from the three most important, sight, hearing and touch, which
bring us into harmony with nature. Our sense of sight is influenced by such
things as climate, scenery, the changes of colour, the aspect of men and
animals, of trees and flowers, and in the same way our sense of hearing by the
wind, the crash of thunder, the sound of water, the melody of song, the tone of
the voice and human speech. There also comes into account the configuration of
the earth, which gives acoustic properties to the voice and to the winds. These
fundamental matters are in our opinion common to every kind of art; for their
content, so long as it is only spiritual, is not specially bound up with one
sense, but equally with all. As soon as the idea assumes a specific form,'[1]
it at once requires its own special nourishment. In the case of the musician
this form at once connects with the sound of the wind, with the murmur of the
river: in that of the painter, with the colour of the landscape or the sky: in
hat of the sculptor and architect, with mountains, trees, people and so on. And
then when the musician is not listening but merely has his eyes open,
everything produces melody and rhythm: while to the painter, the sculptor and
the architect even what they hear produces colour, form and constructive shape.
When the musician stands before a painting or statue or building, in so far as
he analyses his impression, it is in the main a sensation of melody. With
artists of other branches there is a similar impression when they listen to
music. For the profane, these branches of art are entirely distinct, owing to
their different manner of expression, whereas for those who are in a position
to penetrate into their spiritual affinities it is clear that they have a
common origin. Each branch of art, if it is on a high level, has elements drawn
from the others: in music there is the constructive element of the architect,
the plastic element of the sculptor, the colours of the painter: and in exactly
the same way plastic art has rhythm and melody. Real poetry has elements from
them all, and is indeed nothing less than a combination of them all in one. It
is not necessary to emphasise that painting contains constructive and plastic
qualities borrowed from architecture and sculpture, and conversely in sculpture
and architecture may be found, above their material forms, the fantasy of the
painter. But none the less, in every branch of art special stress must be laid
on its own specific form, for when that is not the case, it is unstable,
colourless, mute, lacking in character. This does not occur where art is
spontaneous, instinctive and intuitive, but most frequently in the case of
works which are created by the intellect, without real inspiration: their
author has, so to speak, chosen the wrong language, and so in him and in his
struggle for expression the specific form is not sufficiently stressed.
In ancient Greece beauty in
art was the same as goodness and perfection in the moral sense. This principle must,
in our opinion, be the foundation in any discussion of Michelangelo's work, for
it was undoubtedly the starting point of his own belief, as with the Greeks. As
art degenerated, so too did the conception of beauty. And if we were to come
with academic measures of beauty, then we should not find very much beauty in
Michelangelo's works: at least not in his principal works, even though they are
instinct with true beauty, permeated with the strength of this world and the
thirst for heavenly things. That is to say, his works, judged by their strength
of form, are essentially affirmative of the present, and yet are full of
yearnings for the future --of yearnings for God, in the fierce struggle between
good and evil, between what we are here and what we would fain be in the
unknown, between what is in our blood and what is in our soul. He is the most
wholehearted warrior of the hidden Godhead and the most enthusiastic lover of
the light. Man cannot attain to God, but he can strive after Him, and that this
is possible means that there is something divine within him and in what he
creates. The sphinx is a symbol: no one ought deliberately to indulge in
symbols, but he whose spiritual powers are of this kind, has it within him and
in all that he creates. Man can say: "I am what I have been, and shall be
what I am"; but he cannot say: "I have been what I wished to be"
nor "I am it now", even though he wishes to believe that be will be.
God is always that. And therefore Christ says in His Revelation to John:
"The First and the Last". We would fain believe that He says this not
as Son of Man, but as God, and that we too shall be so in the future: and that
we may be so, we strain our spiritual forces to the utmost. We see that we
cannot appear before the Father, either as we have been or as we are; and so we
strive to become such that we may be allowed to appear before Him. The Redeemer
has only pointed out the way of salvation: each individual must purchase his
own. But we do not attempt all at once to separate light from darkness-nor
indeed is it in our power-but we work with both, because the wings of our soul
are riveted to the body, at least for our earthly attempts at flight. And our
Redeemer, and all redeemers, have redeemed both soul and body. At the Last
judgment both must come forth again together, because it is so ordained. Michelangelo
desires both: when he takes a step, he steps into the darkness, but when
he sighs, he sighs in the light. In Christianity those four parts of a single
symbol have become simply four blazons of the Eternal Judge: good and evil,
light and darkness, are transferred to Satan and the Archangel. Michelangelo
portrays these two conceptions in "Day" and "Night".
Day and Night may be called Good and Evil, and it is assuredly as such that he
thought of them: they are the father and mother of our experience, they direct
and tyrannise over all our undertakings. But those two conceptions also stand
in contrast every day and every night: nor is day absolute day, nor night
absolute night. "Satan" passes from day into night, and
"Dawn" from night into day.
The age in which Michelangelo
lived is well known from history and can be read of in many monographs:
hence we need not deal with it here. Whether he was conscious of his role, we
do not know, but it is probable that he was, though it was not always apparent,
so that some have thought that he was only conscious from time to time. There
is in the Dialogues of Francisco d'Olanda[2]
a characteristic passage, on Michelangelo's attitude to the functions of the
Artist. "In art, the intelligence which only understands beauty, of
whatever degree, never gets any further than good resolves ... It is not enough
for the true painter, that he should partially imitate the nature of our Lord,
and should thus have become a master full of knowledge and penetration. For my
part I think it is necessary for him to lead a very Christian life, even the
life of a Saint, if it be possible that the Holy Spirit should breathe through
him. In the Old Testament, God the Father willed that those entrusted with the
task of beautifying and adorning the Ark of the Faith, should not only be
excellent craftsmen, but should also share in His love and His wisdom". It
will be seen, then, that Michelangelo was
conscious of saying to his compatriots and contemporaries what the Hebrew
prophets said of old to theirs. Does it not then seem to you that as he climbs
the mountains of Carrara, to hew those blocks of marble within
which still slumber his titanic figures, there is in his aspect and in his
gestures something of the expression of Moses, when he climbed Mount Sinai to
fetch the tablets of stone on which were cut the Commandments of God! Expect
that here Michelangelo was a mediator, and so to
speak anonymous: for all this was presumably in accordance with the higher will
and conception of the Roman Pharaoh on St. Peters Chair, who wished, like those
old Egyptian Kings, to immortalise himself. Michelangelo is
the forerunner of the modern man who rebels against everything and seeks to
bring everything into harmony, because it is his mission to build and raise and
harmonise. His greatest conflict is with himself, and his tragedy lies in his
mission, lies within him. This has been his ruin-but it has also given birth to
his creations. The conflict with his fellow-men is the consequence of this
mission. It has been a kind of physical exercise, now severe now easier, but
nothing more than this.
I do not
agree with the view that Michelangelo's art was injured by the fact that it was
impossible for him to complete in peace any single work in its entirety. Or at
least I cannot agree that the fragments which he has left do not reveal him to
us in all his greatness, as would have been the case if he had remained
undisturbed to complete the vast design. His works are torn apart and in
pieces, but certainly not his work as a whole, nor he himself as an artistic
figure. On the contrary it seems to me that if Michelangelo had
not had to stop working at the Tomb of Pope Julius in order to paint the
Sistine Chapel, he would not have stood revealed to us in all his greatness.
Had he devoted to work in stone alone the many years which such work-demands,
he would have come down to us as a great and finished sculptor, but not also as
a living witness to the fact that the creative spirit is not merely above mere
craftsmanship, but above and beyond any one variety of expression. It is
exactly the same with his "unfinished" sculpture: for that very
reason he stands revealed to us as the most complete artist that has ever
lived. He has left to us every phase alike of artistic creation and of
artistic method (but it would have been dangerous if others had wished to
imitate him in this, without due necessity). In his "unfinished"
works he has left to us all the greatness of his creative power, which is far
greater than all his perfection of craft. Those unfinished Titans of his
("The Slaves")-still half wrapt in matter-stand before us as strong
and great as he saw them with those other eyes, before ever he began to draw
them out of their material shell. It is the moment when the spirit is strongest
and most concentrated in action: in these unfinished figures Michelangelo
has put that moment into stone for us, for all time.
So great was the
disproportion between his spiritual and physical strength, that it was hard for
his hands to achieve what his spirit would have wished. In the frescoes of the
Sistine Chapel a far wider field was offered to him than he could have found in
planning the Tomb of Pope Julius. On the tomb he was able to place Moses, but
Jehovah he never could have placed there. Great as were his love and
ardent service for Mother Church, and mighty as were the wings of his soul, by
which he would fain have lifted into higher spheres his friend and patron, it
would have been physically impossible for him to surround the figure of Julius
with such creations as the Ezekiel and Zacharias beside his Jehovah in the
Sistine Chapel. Of the successor of Peter he could make a patriarch, but not
the Lord of the Sabbath. In other words, he could not by plastic effort have
created another Old Testament or become its interpreter. The Creation of the
World was a still greater task, and was more in keeping with the Creator of
Michelangelo's fantasy, and its figures a hundred times greater than was Pope
Julius II. And then, though Michelangelo even in
his frescoes remained the sculptor, he could not have spoken in sculpture, in
stone, as he did in fresco. At least not on certain problems. His God the
Father, when in the fury of His strength and power He divides the light from
the darkness, is the best symbol of the Old Testament and of all that life in
which spirit and matter are at odds. This work, even though it be not his best
as a finished expression, may serve as the interpreter of all Michelangelo's
works, and as it were, the guide through his dominions-his enduring portrait
through all three periods of his life. He is in this rôle when he lifts the
veil of matter from his marble figures: he in this rôle when he removes his scaffolding
from the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and reveals a whole Biblical world to our
gaze. His hands and his spirit are always in this rôle, in all his works,
whenever he unveils to our sight that world of his that others cannot see. Michelangelo,
in his power and in his simplicity, in the form and fierce intensity of
temperament, is completely the artist of the Old Testament, its greatest
plastic interpreter: he figures forth the greatness and the gloom of the Hebrew
prophets, full of light and spirit, full of strength and goodness.
If the history of art is
divided into its chief component parts, then Michelangelo may
be taken as a continuation of that Greek period which attained its height in
Phidias: when the gods assumed full human form, and when men, side by side with
their physical nature, rose above the personal to the superhuman, the divine.
This period may be regarded as that in which the white (Nordic) race by
marriage with the East affirmed its manly character, forgetting neither the
milk nor the tenderness of its Eastern mother, without whom the white man would
have remained a mere barbarian, a primitive, a worker in the fields, before the
gates of the ancient mysteries, with their taste and sense of refinement.
Though sculpture by its nature is more enslaved to details than architecture,
yet that of Phidias can be treated as Doric sculpture, with which it
forms a single whole. Certainly less tender, less mysterious, but with more
determination, it is bent upon bringing man with all his being to God. Just as
Doric architecture, with all its massiveness, betrays much more than Ionic, its
origin from wood, so too in sculpture we see more of the human element, even
though on a larger and more massive scale. Logical objectivity would seem to be
a quality of the white race, but is often its weakness, when it is faced with
mystery and poetry. Coming into contact with eastern races and cultures, which
were unquestionably superior and among which Art had attained to its highest
success, the Dorians remained spellbound: but in their strength, and in the
flight of a strong and intelligent race, they at first began to imitate, and
very quickly became conscious of their rôle as vanquished conquerors. They were
eager to learn everything and to see things as they are both the divine symbols
and the rules of artistic procedure, and one cannot say that they were
unsuccessful. But it also cannot be maintained that by their passion for
"precision" they in any way diminished the mysteries of eastern
divinity. No sooner had they attained the same level as the Ionians and in
certain respects surpassed them, than there is already with Praxiteles a
tendency to decadence: the gods are only playing with man, and as if in joke
assume human form, in order to teach man to read. But while man would fain
chain them to his shape and find a definition for them, they vanish, and man is
left naked, mortal and puny, even though he may exaggerate his triumphs a
hundredfold.
He who really understands art
cannot maintain that Phidias had surpassed the Egyptians or Greek art about the
end of the fifth century. This much is certain, that he had brought the form of
the human body to a degree of perfection such as no one before him, so far as
we know, had equalled and such as hardly anyone has equalled since. The
Egyptians took from the mountain, from its every stone, a divinity cast in the
image of man: while the Greeks of the fourth century deprived God of His
mysterious veil, and transformed Him into human likeness. This does not detract
from their greatness, for it is in the struggle to attain Him, to become one
with Him, that the divine element in man consists. And however often he might
burn his wings .in the sunlight, because he could not scale the divine heights,
yet the creative spark in him urged him to storm them anew, and through
countless years of sacrifice and effort to pay the price of his redemption. In
that too is to be found his noblest sacrifice and prayer to the Creator. But no
sooner had the Greek genius reached its height in Phidias, than by a higher law
of progress and decline its wings were broken, and an age began when barbarian
Kings hewed off the heads of the gods and replaced them with their own, thus
degrading the symbols of pure and lofty Godhead to the level of conquerors and
tyrants.
From the beginning of time
Art has embodied all that is most beautiful in man, and has gone hand in hand
with his loftiest aims, both in their ideal and moral aspect: and this, in
common with religion-man's greatest spiritual achievement-was now to suffer
shipwreck. Since, then, faith is the mother of every loftier human thought and
achievement, and since in accordance with a higher will the human race cannot
live without faith, the Redeemer appeared and after a short period Art too
began to experience a new birth, on the wings of its mother, Religion. By the
strength of faith and under the shelter of the Church, the barbarian nations
created a great Christian art, which indeed in its formal and aesthetic
conceptions is less finished than classic art, but in its expression does not
for a moment remain behind it. Its horizons are narrower, and classic art has
not the same technical knowledge and finish as Eastern art, nor has it the same
breadth of vision: it only knows human suffering as the suffering of a group,
and has no idea that the whole universe suffers and that its very being
consists in suffering. But yet it has links with the universe, just as the
words of the Gospel; for all true religions are equal, merely expressing in
different words one and the same belief, and having the same goal, the same
effort after God, who is the supreme wisdom and the supreme harmony.
From the first centuries of
Christianity right down to the 14th century, Christian civilisation produced
countless splendid and lasting monuments. But while on the one hand it acquired
great merit -in an age when belief in Christ was cutting for itself a path
among the ignorant and godless, and often even among evildoers- on the other
hand it was not without its faults. While waging war against the false faiths
which were its rivals, it also effaced the traces of the true faith, casting
into the dust and breaking to pieces the statues of tyrant Caesars: and it thus
destroyed numerous monuments erected to the memory of the one true God. The
ignorant masses naturally could not understand that the Redeemer did not come
so much to deliver them from temptation and to redeem not only the just,
but still more the sinners; but rather that He came not to destroy, but to
build and that every creation of the human intellect, faith and spirit, serves
one and the same God, who is immeasurable, as are immeasurable and
incomprehensible the ways that lead to Him. Enlightened and intelligent Popes,
Cardinals, and men of birth, not only began to protect this pagan world of
stone from the destructive and fanatical mob, but also extended to it a notable
hospitality in their houses and palaces. They began to admire it, and through
it to read and to feel that its authors had also been inspired, and had perhaps
stood nearer to God, as the Idea of perfection, than they themselves or than
what might be the mere fanaticism of the convert. The first who attempted to
mediate between this rediscovered antique world and the leaders of his day in
Church and state were the poets and artists, as high priests of thought and
beauty. Thus many works of the Greek genius were rescued for humanity, to the
benefit of art and later civilisation.
It is,
moreover, to the enlightenment and second sight of many Roman Pontiffs and high
church dignitaries that we owe all the chief monuments of later Christian art:
for it was the antique works collected by them that provided the necessary
means of study and inspiration. The first among these artists, Brunelleschi and
Donatello, who went as pilgrims to the ancient monuments of
Rome, retain all the charm of Christian art, but deepen and broaden its
outlook. They are at the same time forerunners of Michelangelo, to
whose level he in certain aspects never attained, much less outdistanced them.
A restless and powerful spirit, Michelangelo Buonarotti
goes on his way, and he is the greatest representative of Christian art,
coupling in his own person the ancient Hellenic with the Christian spirit. He
is really the link between the two arts, the Greek and the Christian, even
though he does not entirely belong to either. While Donatello for
instance-in his spiritual and noble sense for line-links up the Etruscan and
the Christian spirit, Michelangelo is the
intermediary between the Doric spirit and Christian art. Besides the Greeks he
had two other great teachers, the Old Testament and Nature: and he was also
noticeably influenced by Dante, in whom are
blended Homer and the Bible, and in whom he could find more contrasts of light
and shade than in Giotto, or in any painter after him
who corresponded to his temperament and to his critical and reflective nature.
The greatest
influence of all upon his spiritual nature, however, was the Old Testament. As
a spiritual type, Michelangelo resembles
the Prophets of the Bible, and hence is their greatest interpreter in plastic
form. As Phidias found in the Greek mythology a medium for plastic expression,
so did Michelangelo find it in the Old Testament.
Such works of plastic art as had been produced from the Old Testament before
him, were mere pale shadows of the forerunners of the New. Only Michelangelo
had really studied the Old Testament and given to it its full plastic
form: he clothed it with Greek plastic expression and made of it a great and
powerful pedestal of Christian Art, just as the Old Testament is the pedestal
upon which rests the New. Nay more, it is through the Old that he looks upon
the New Testament, in which he is not so much at home. His Christ in the Last
judgment is not One who forgives, but rather the true Son of the terrible
Jehovah, who judges and does not forgive: he seems to believe that goodness
lies in power, and not power in goodness.
If too Michelangelo did
not attain to the perfection of Phidias in the matter of form or to the
sovereign calm of the Greeks, he surpassed them in temperament, in zest of
life, in musical feeling. Greek music is primitive, and only knows a few
strings, whereas Michelangelo is a master of the many
voices of modern instrumental music. I shall deal with this point in fuller
detail after I have analysed one by one the works of this great plastic
musician: in this introductory essay I am merely touching upon those aspects
which seem to me the most important and on which it is necessary to lay special
stress, if one wishes to penetrate the soul of Michelangelo as artist
and as man. In concluding this introductory study by a comparison of Michelangelo
with Greek art at its height, I might briefly sum up my thought in this
way. Had Michelangelo seen, let us say, the statues
of Phidias, he would have been far more likely to fall prostrate before them
than before any of the Hebrew prophets: but it is none the less certain that
had they both lived in the same age, and had Prometheus been given to them as a
subject, Michelangelo would have gained the
victory. He is one of the typical fathers of the modern man, who fought with
his whole organism -with bones and flesh and nerves, with doubting and with
faith- in order that he might attain to God and thus convince himself that Man
is but a fragment of Eternity.
(Translated
by R.W.S.W.)
* This article has been published in The Slavonic Review, vol. 5, no. 14, December, 1926, p. 225-241 with the following
footnote: "This article is the introduction to a short monograph, in which
the greatest of Slav sculptors proposes to interpret to his fellow-countrymen
the supreme artist of Italian Renaissance. But it is also something in the
nature of a confession of faith, which deserves to be known to Meštrović´s
many admirers in the West. It was published in Croat in the Nova Evropa of 11 November, and has, we believe, also been published in Italian, in
a version of Signor Giovanni Papini. - Ed."
There
is a note at the end of the article: "Translated by R.W.S.W." These
initials stand for Robert William Seton-Watson, British historian and publicist
(1879-1951).
The editors of the Journal of
Croatian Studies gratefully acknowledge
permission granted by The
Slavonic & East European Studies
to reprint the article.
[1] Here and in two subsequent passages on page 15 the
word translated as "specific form" is really "sex" (spol).-Ed.
[2] Rome, 1924.