Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1917-11-09
THE STRUGGLES OF MICHEL
ANGELO.

Proud, passionate, restless and
melancholy, forever driven forward
by devouring energy, forever i'm
peded and turned aside by his vacil-
lating, changeable temperament-th
is the picture Of Michelangelo that
Roman ROLAND gives us in his study
of that great genius.
The thing that stands out in read
ing Michelangelo's life is the dispar-
ity between what he attempted and
what he actually performed. No other
man ever created so many great works
of genius. Yet what he did was only
a fragment Of the great schemes he
laid out to himself. He was continual
ly plunging into undertakings beyond
all possibility of his carrying out.
Thus when he was twenty-six years
of age he signed q contract to de-
liver, in three years, fifteen figures of
apostles and saints for an altar in
Sienna.
"This," says the writer, twas the
first of those overpowering commits
sions which Michelangelo never hes
toxication of his imagination without
any lust estimate Of his powers, and
which weighed on him all his life like
remorse." Only four Of these figures
were delivered. Two years later he
undertook twelve statues for the Ca
thedral at Florence, but began oily
one which was never finished.
His next project was tomb for
Pope julius II. This WAS the great
ambition of his life. 1t was to be
mountain of architecture with more
than forty statutes. some Of them OF
colossal size. Michelangelo spent 8
months in the mountains overseeing
the cutting Of the marble for it. But
he heda no sooner brought together
the enormous pile of material and set
to work than Pope julius changed his
mind and decided to have a colossal
bronze statute raised to himself in
stead.
In vain Micbelangelo protested that
he understood nothing, about the cast
ing of, bronze. He spent two years on on
the statute, nearly ruined his health
over it, and in the end it was fall
ure.
Instead Of letting him complete the
tomb, the Pope now laid on him
another terrible task. He ordered
the sculptor, "who never painted ex-
eept with reluctance, and who knew
nothing Of the technique Of frescoe,"
to paint the ceiling Of the Sistine
Chapel. AS always, Michelangelo be-
gan by resisting, but ended by becom-
ing fired with the idea. This took
four years Of ceaseless, unwearyine
effort, Then Pope julius died. Mich
clangelo resolved to finish the tomb
but after he had worked on it three
years, the new Pope, Leo x, persuad
ed him to undertake something else
And so it went all through his life
Always conceiving vast, splendid pro
jects, always beginning them with ;
fury Of enthusiasm and toiling lik'
Hercules to execute them, he woult
end by being seized with some new
idea, for which he would abandon
everything that had gone bofer.
His last work was the budding o
st. Peters, one Of the greatest ar
chitectural achievements Of all time
This had already been begun b,
Bramante and Raphael. Michelange
10 was put in charge Of its compile
ton. He undertook this work at tn
age of seventy-two. He never cease
working on it until his death at 81
He refused any pay for it. He wrot
to his nephew: "Many people be
lieve, as do. that have been place
at this post by God will not leav
it, because I am serving for the lov
of God and MT all NV hone in Him