ogres and of Lyonesse," or resume his
Euripidean garlands showered on Samson's grave. But, for my master
Michelangelo, it will suffice to observe that all the grace his genius
held, refined, of earthly grossness quit, appeared, under the
dominance of this fourth manner, in the mythological subjects he
composed for Tommaso Cavalieri, and, far more nobly, in his countless
studies for the celebration of Christ's Passion. The designs
bequeathed to us from this period are very numerous. They were never
employed in the production of any monumental work of sculpture or of
painting. For this very reason, because they were occasional
improvisations, preludes, dreams of things to be, they preserve the
finest bloom, the Indian summer of his fancy. Lovers of Michelangelo
must dedicate their latest and most loving studies to this phase of
his fourth manner.

X

If we seek to penetrate the genius of an artist, not merely forming a
correct estimate of his technical ability and science, but also
probing his personality to the core, as near as this is possible for
us to do, we ought to give our undivided study to his drawings. It is
there, and there alone, that we come face to face with the real man,
in his unguarded moments, in his hours of inspiration, in the
laborious effort to solve a problem of composition, or in the happy
flow of genial improvisation. Michelangelo was wont to maintain that
all the arts are included in the art of design. Sculpture, painting,
architecture, he said, are but subordinate branches of
draughtsmanship. And he went so far as to assert that the mechanical
arts, with engineering and fortification, nay, even the minor arts of
decoration and costume, owe their existence to design. The more we
reflect upon this apparent paradox, the more shall we feel it to be
true. At any rate, there are no products of human thought and feeling
capable of being expressed by form which do not find their common
denominator in a linear drawing. The simplicity of a sketch, the
comparative rapidity with which it is produced, the concentration of
meaning demanded by its rigid economy of means, render it more
symbolical, more like the hieroglyph of its maker's mind, than any
finished work can be. We may discover a greater mass of interesting
objects in a painted picture or a carved statue; but we shall never
find exactly the same thing, never the involuntary revelation of the
artist's soul, the irrefutable witness to his mental