Signing off from work for a few days; a late summer break. The end of an eventful, delightful summer. Time to take stock and so make way for new inspiration. Time to begin to gather that seed, ready to nurture it over the autumn and winter months so it may begin to flourish come spring-time.
And since this is a time for contemplation, some food for thought: another excerpt from my notes on the book about Michelangelo:
For Michelangelo, Plotinus was an especially apt inspiration, a philosopher who upheld the carver's art - 'taking away' - as a model of spiritual self-perfection. To the question 'How can one see the beauty of a good soul?' Plotinus replied: Withdraw into yourself and look. If you do not as yet see beauty within you, do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be beautified; he cuts away here, he smoothes it there, he makes this line lighter, this other one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. Do you this too. Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one radiance of beauty. Never cease 'working the statue'. Thus we become our statues, and our life's work is to pare away the dross and reach the virtuous form within.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Michelangelo's Mountain
As Pietra Santa is nearing completion and my thoughts are beginning to turn to the next marble stone (retrieved from the same river in the Carrara region as the Pietra Santa stone) I've been reading through the entries in the journal I kept during my stay there. They include notes on a book about Michelangelo and the marble quarries of Carrara:
... the artist as the revealer rather than the maker, the midwife rather than creator, the modest servant of a nature ensconced in stone. Rather than imposing his will upon the marble, he draws out the life incubated in it. This suggests a paradoxical balance between willful design and spontaneous discovery: the concetto (concept) is bound within the stone, but the intelletto (intellect) guides the hand in drawing it out. ...
Also a local myth about how the marble came to be in Carrara - I particularly love the ending:
God had almost finished making the world when he grew tired. He called two angels, one smart one and one not, and directed them to finish the last remaining chore: to take sacks of ore, granite, marble and other mountain-building materials and spread them evenly over the Italian peninsula. 'I'll start at Venice and make the Alps,' the clever angel told the dunce. 'You start at Genoa and make the Apennines.' But the dumb angel dozed off at the first beach he found, below what is now Carrara. Waking in a panic, he dropped all his marble in a heap and slunk back to Heaven. 'What have you done with all that precious marble?' God thundered, but then he smiled. 'This may not be so bad after all. Now artists will come from all over the world and make sculptures for me.'
... the artist as the revealer rather than the maker, the midwife rather than creator, the modest servant of a nature ensconced in stone. Rather than imposing his will upon the marble, he draws out the life incubated in it. This suggests a paradoxical balance between willful design and spontaneous discovery: the concetto (concept) is bound within the stone, but the intelletto (intellect) guides the hand in drawing it out. ...
Also a local myth about how the marble came to be in Carrara - I particularly love the ending:
God had almost finished making the world when he grew tired. He called two angels, one smart one and one not, and directed them to finish the last remaining chore: to take sacks of ore, granite, marble and other mountain-building materials and spread them evenly over the Italian peninsula. 'I'll start at Venice and make the Alps,' the clever angel told the dunce. 'You start at Genoa and make the Apennines.' But the dumb angel dozed off at the first beach he found, below what is now Carrara. Waking in a panic, he dropped all his marble in a heap and slunk back to Heaven. 'What have you done with all that precious marble?' God thundered, but then he smiled. 'This may not be so bad after all. Now artists will come from all over the world and make sculptures for me.'
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