Another of the artists I admire most is Michelangelo. His work combines an extraordinary level of technical mastery with a profound understanding of the human form. Whether in sculpture, painting or architecture, he had an unmatched ability to express strength, beauty and emotion. I still remember visiting Rome in 1996 and standing beneath the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the first time. I was completely blown away. No photograph had prepared me for the scale, complexity and sheer brilliance of what he created.
What I find especially inspiring is the way Michelangelo seemed to see potential where others saw only raw stone. His famous idea that the sculpture already existed within the marble, and that his task was simply to reveal it, has always resonated with me. It feels like a powerful metaphor for life itself—that beneath the surface there is something waiting to be uncovered through patience, effort and vision. His work reminds me that great art is not only about skill, but about revealing something deeper that was there all along.
Favourite quotes
- Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
- My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.
- The great tragedy of life is not that people set their sights too high and fail to achieve their goals but that they set their sights too low and do.
- If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius.
- If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.
- Perfection is no small thing, but it is made up of small things.
- The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
- No great work of art is ever finished.
- Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.
- I am still learning. (at age 87)
- Only God creates. The rest of us just copy.
- Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.
- Quotes on Wisdom Trove
- Life lessons
