So now, from this mad passion Which made me take art for an idol and a king I have learnt the burden of error that it bore And what misfortune springs from man's desire... The world's frivolities have robbed me of the time That I was given for reflecting upon God.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the dangers of allowing passion for art to distract from spiritual reflection.
Michelangelo expresses a deep regret about how his intense passion for art, which he revered almost as an idol, led him astray from contemplating deeper spiritual truths and his relationship with God. He acknowledges that this obsession has not only caused personal misfortune but has also diverted his time away from meaningful reflection, highlighting the tension between worldly desires and spiritual fulfillment.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of balance in life, I quoted Michelangelo to illustrate how passions can distract us from spiritual growth.
The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem.
The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.
Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.
If it be true that any beautiful thing raises the pure and just desire of man from earth to God, the eternal fount of all, such I believe my love.
Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free.
I always write a draft version of the novel in which I try to develop, not the story, not the plot, but the possibilities of the plot. I write without thinking much, trying to overcome all kinds of self-criticism, without stopping, without giving any consideration to the style or structure of the novel, only putting down on paper everything that can be used as raw material, very crude material for later development in the story.
When you are real in your music, people know it and they feel your authenticity.
Even now, nature is the only flame, on which the poetic spirit feeds; from it alone it draws all its power, to it alone it speaks even in the artificial, in the man engaged in culture.
The only way artists can do things is to do it for themselves. Trying to second guess what the public wants or likes is kind of a fool's game.
Dance is not endangered - it will always find a way to express itself.
I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature... Never again another seven-volume saga.
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