Michelangelo's Captives: Dying Slave Louvre museum, Paris carved 1513-1516 He stands in a hall, windows sifting light from either side; shadows accentuate the muscled shoulder raised, its bicep flexed below an elbow pointing high above his head. Only a thin strap at his chest restrains him, but the slight twist of his torso, the extended arm, his strong neck tilted back in clear surrender, soft-- an offering. A single finger fiddles with the strap. He has control. His body isn’t tense, but supple, & the grace of his slim torso, the clear power of broad muscled arms, the ceding posture of his legs, cling to the eye of the beholder, exude a sensuality at once modest and provocative, a contrapposto relinquishing control. To this potent surrender, the viewer is captive, not the slave. Michelangelo's Pieta St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome carved 1498-1499 (damaged 1972) Consider how Jesus lies across her lap. Laws of physics says he should fall, but Michelangelo made him stay, a disregard of gravity—a fantasy we accept, as love redraws perception. Consider Mary, a mother’s love. Bent over her young son’s body, Mary survived a hammer attack, a broken arm, broken nose, a blow to the eye. She would die to protect him. Her vigil, eternal grief. She holds her son, still her baby, thirty-three. An Angel told her he was holy. Michelangelo allowed the smaller miracle, the width and weight of his adult body, still, cradled on her lap. She lifts his torso with one arm, her right; her left hand begs the air, a silent plea, My son, my son, my son. No mother should outlive her child. Michelangelo's David Accademia Gallery, Florence carved 1501-1504 When I saw the David he still stood outside the Accademia, subject to wind and weather. Carved from a single block of pure white marble from Pietrasanta’s Carrera quarry. Enormous. Holy stone brought to Florence by boat, untamed by tools of three other sculptors before Michelangelo wrested form from its more than seventeen feet, more than twelve thousand pounds. Imagine how much was cut away, one stroke at a time. Rough planes uncovered by a heavy point chisel and smoothed by tools with teeth, a flat chisel to refine, then rasps, pumice stone to polish, to shine. All driven by a wooden hammer. Each stroke took power. David’s hand that held the slingshot hangs enormous, disproportionate to the body, grand as the legend of his storied defeat— Goliath, a giant foe. This carved moment is the triumph of a boy who stands in beauty, his face and furrowed brow turned toward an unseen — what? A threat he does not fear. His gaze, intense, focused and full, animates the space it fills. We look up and feel his power, this enormous man-boy, an embodied dream. The legend of his victory expressed. We fall into the trance of what’s unveiled within a block of stone. Beauty. By constant hammering. Some of us are upset by beauty. We have our reasons. One man, in Florence, after the David was moved inside, pulled a hammer from his coat and pummeled one of David’s toes before being subdued. What inspires violence to art? What influence does it bear, what challenges? Art has power. Yes, and threat. Ars Poetica, the Rondanini Pieta Museo della Pietà Rondanini, Sforza Castle Milan, carved 1552-1564 (unfinished) An arm, detached from any body, rising from the stone that holds his leg. Jesus and Mary form an arc, like a bow tightened by an archer, arrow at the ready. The sculptor’s tool marks trace his hammer’s path. He left that arm. An earlier Jesus? His own? A lover? The rest, a rough sketch, a scarf horizontal on Mary’s brow, Jesus’ slender legs, his narrow shoulders. Always an offering, this, to the viewer: Finish me in your mind, Grasp. Love, desperate and shorn. Hold it close. Cheney Crow Cheney Crow lives in Austin, Texas, where she enjoys the visitors and inhabitants of her yard: great horned owls, red-shouldered hawks, occasional rabbits, foxes, cardinals, woodpeckers, migrating Monarchs, a mockingbird that echos the backup sound of excavators working nearby. Her poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Terminus, Tupelo Quarterly, Poetry International. She's a long-time voter registration volunteer and teacher.
1 Comment
Dave Gerold
10/13/2024 04:00:51 pm
Wonderful - thanks for these - helped me see those works in new ways - esp the closing stanza for each poem
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