prince of humanists recommended Michelangelo
to treat in bas-relief an antique fable, involving the strife of young
heroes for some woman's person. Probably he was also able to point out
classical examples by which the boyish sculptor might be guided in the
undertaking. The subject made enormous demands upon his knowledge of
the nude. Adult and youthful figures, in attitudes of vehement attack
and resistance, had to be modelled; and the conditions of the myth
required that one at least of them should be brought into harmony with
equine forms. Michelangelo wrestled vigorously with these
difficulties. He produced a work which, though it is imperfect and
immature, brings to light the specific qualities of his inherent
art-capacity. The bas-relief, still preserved in the Casa Buonarroti
at Florence, is, so to speak, in fermentation with powerful
half-realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening, attempts at
intricate grouping, violent dramatic action and expression. No
previous tradition, unless it was the genius of Greek or Greco-Roman
antiquity, supplied Michelangelo with the motive force for this
prentice-piece in sculpture. Donatello and other Florentines worked
under different sympathies for form, affecting angularity in their
treatment of the nude, adhering to literal transcripts from the model
or to conventional stylistic schemes. Michelangelo discarded these
limitations, and showed himself an ardent student of reality in the
service of some lofty intellectual ideal. Following and closely
observing Nature, he was also sensitive to the light and guidance of
the classic genius. Yet, at the same time, he violated the aesthetic
laws obeyed by that genius, displaying his Tuscan proclivities by
violent dramatic suggestions, and in loaded, overcomplicated
composition. Thus, in this highly interesting essay, the horoscope of
the mightiest Florentine artist was already cast. Nature leads him,
and he follows Nature as his own star bids. But that star is double,
blending classic influence with Tuscan instinct. The roof of the
Sistine was destined to exhibit to an awe-struck world what wealths of
originality lay in the artist thus gifted, and thus swayed by rival
forces. For the present, it may be enough to remark that, in the
geometrical proportions of this bas-relief, which is too high for its
length, Michelangelo revealed imperfect feeling for antique
principles; while, in the grouping of the figures, which is more
pict