The Agony and the Ecstasy

Raymond Torres Professor Kenneth L. Campbell History 535:50 7/27/2011

Torres 2 Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy, (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1961) The Agony and the Ecstasy is a biographical novel of the life of Michelangelo and the struggles that he endures to overcome obstacles and interferences from family, religious, politics and artistic jealousy to achieve his ambition as a sculptor. The novel begins when Michelangelo is thirteen years old apprentice and ends with his death at the age of 89 where he sculpted the Madonna and Child as a teenager to a eighty year old painter of the Last Judgment. His career as an artist was laced with hurdles and obstacles which he overcame. At the end of his life, Michelangelo carved himself a lifetime of successful history of painting, sculpture and architecture. Despite his fathers opposition, Michelangelo became an apprentice, first to painter Ghirlandaio and then to Bertoldo, a sculptor, who directed a school financed by Lorenzo de Medici. Lorenzo was his first patron to encouraged Michelangelo in his career as a sculptor. At the age of fifteen, Michelangelo displayed a sensitivity of a master sculptor when he carved out the image of Mother Mary experiencing the conflicting emotions of love and anxiety as she fed infant Jesus, in his creation Madonna and Child. Under the reign of Lorenzo, Michelangelo felt secured and free enough to express his sculpting ideas in the way he loved best. When a fanatical named Savonarola, a reform priest, gained political and religious control, he threatened and criticized Lorenzo de Medicis family and the Florentine art world. Lorenzo tried to counter the charges against him by Savonarola but falls ill and dies. With Lorenzos death, sadden by the lost of his friend, Michelangelo felt alone. (Stone, 1961, 188) Stone brings out the contradiction between religion and humanism with Savonarola and Lorenzo. Savonarola was displayed as a bitter fanatic that gained

Torres 3 popularity by inspiring fear in the heart of the people while Lorenzo and Bertoldo spread good will and knowledge that encouraged artists like Michelangelo to do their best. Depressed by the loss of Lorenzo Medici, Michelangelo befriend Prior Bacchielini and stayed at a monastery. When he decided to sculpt Hercules, Michelangelo envisioned Lorenzo in Hercules. Unable to capture the essence of the mythological hero, he felt the need to study the human anatomy in order to sculpt a realistic figure. Michelangelo persuaded Bacchielini to give him the keys to the morgue where he dissected many bodies and gained the knowledge of human functioning. When he finished, not only did he have the confidence to carve a rugged male form, but he felt the moral and physical strength of Hercules within his sculpture. (Stone, 1961, 229230) Soon after, the prior gave him the chance to carve a wooden crucifix for the central alter in the monastery. Michelangelo read the New Testament to understand the agony of Christ, which I believed snapped Michelangelo from depression of losing Lorenzo. He related his struggle as an artist to where the intense physical and spiritual inner conflict of a man who is being pulled two ways. (Stone, 1961, 224) This reflection allowed Michelangelo to carve Christ on the crucifix with a humanly feature with pain and anguish emanating from his face which brought an emotion response from his grandmother. Stone reveals the motivation and perfection that Michelangelo seeks and needs to finish his projects and the steps that he is willing to take to obtain these traits. Michelangelo departed for Bologna and met up with an aristocrat named Aldovrandi who secured a commission for Michelangelo to carve the unfinished figures of Della Arca at San Dominicas. It was this period that Michelangelo met Clarissa, fell in love with her and expresses his love for her through passionate poems. (Stone, 1961, 254-257) Stone displays the women in Michelangelos life as symbols of his work. Contessina was connected to Michelangelo

Torres 4 spiritually and aesthetically because of her exalted position and because he cannot possess her. She represented Michelangelo desires to sculpt but denied. Clarissa represented Michelangelos emotional and physical and she was accessible. For Michelangeo, Clarissa was the female already carved and the incarnation of love in its ultimate female form. (Stone, 1961, 253) It was his love for Clarissa that inspired his carving that the stone angels to life. After finishing the project, Michelangelo returned to Florence. In Florence, Michelangelo carved the Giant, a sculpture of David which became the symbol of Florence. This sculpture finally launched his reputation and fame and soon after was flooded with offers. David represented freedom for Michelangelo who wanted to be free to create his work of art. The Giant went against the images of saint and biblical figures because it was nude. Michelangelo understood that David through his heroic action was made into Goliath which is what Michelangelo was feeling in his journey as an artist, where he has to fight for his artistic principles. (Stone, 1961, 392) This is clearly seen in his conflict with Leonardo Da Vinci, when Stone presents a contrast between the senior artist and Michelangelo. Leonardo was a reputable painter who got the choice commissions that paid a very good stipend. Michelangelo was the sculptor who was struggling to establish himself in the sculpting world. Michelangelo was envious of the senior painter for his personality and status. Leonardo and Michelangelo were candidates in the Duomo competition. The sculpting contract was offered to Leonardo, who declined it because he considered sculpting as an inferior art. Leonardo was proud of his looks and arrogant in his behavior and he disliked spoiling his hands and clothes sculpting hard stones. Michelangelo developed animosity toward Leonardo because of his arrogance and opinion of the sculpting. While Michelangelo believed that sculpting was a divine art, Leonardo regarded painting as the

Torres 5 highest form of art. Michelangelo responded by painting a fresco adjacent to the one granted to Leonardo in the niche of the Great Hall and proves his greatness in painting by painting the Bathers. From book four, Michelangelo travelled to Rome to accept commissions and orders from whimsical and fanatical rulers, who does everything to restrict his creativity. Every time Rome tempted Michelangelo with fame and wealth, he was always disappointed. It appears that every ruler that commissioned for some art in the city was his biggest obstacle. Whimsical and fanatical rulers force him to work on mediums like bronze and frescos and keep him away from marble, the object of his desire. Although disappointed, Michelangelo continued to work with a sense of dedication where each completed tasks were to his satisfaction. At the end of every such assignment, drained of his mental and physical energies, Michelangelo returned to Florence. In book ten, Pope Paul III asked Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment for the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. (Stone, 1961, 675-676) At the age of sixty, Michelangelo was unsure of his ability to complete the task. To his aid, comes Tomasso who lifted Michelangelos morale and inspired him to complete this task to Michelangelo satisfaction. (Stone, 1961, 679) Michelangelo overcomes age and health to finish not only the Last Judgment but also frescos for the Pauline chapel. Lastly, Michelangelo designed and almost completed the dome of St. Peter before he died. The novel concludes where Michelangelo reflected upon his achievement of his life and dies with a sense of fulfillment. In conclusion, The Agony and the Ecstasy traced the life of Michelangelo as an artist who waited for the recognition and understanding of his creativity. He experienced many rulers and different religious heads and was kept away from the marble and forced to work in other mediums. All that he longed for was to unleash his creativity through sculpting. To achieve this,

Torres 6 Michelangelo conquered disease, hatred and age through his talent and dedication. When he finally achieved the chance to sculpt what he desires, he was a very old man. However, working on the marble filled him with so much life that he was able to overcome all obstacles and ailments, to complete all tasks successfully. Years after his death, he is still remembered for his beautiful pieces of art and considered as one of the greatest sculptors in the world.