The science of design, or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture... Sometimes... it seems to me that... all the works of the human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that art.
Interpretation
Design is fundamental to all forms of artistic expression.
In this quote, Michelangelo emphasizes that the principles of design are not just foundational but also intrinsic to various art forms, including painting, sculpture, and architecture. He suggests that every creation of human imagination, whether visual or structural, can be traced back to the core art of design, highlighting its critical role in the artistic process.
In practice
In a lecture about art history, to illustrate the importance of design in various art forms.
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 never allowed myself the luxury of those brilliant, beautiful colors until I went to India and saw people walking around in them or dragging them in the mud. I realised they were not so artificial.
Throughout the time in which I am working on a canvas I can feel how I am beginning to love it, with that love which is born of slow comprehension.
An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can't get inside and know the subject.
In art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution.
There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.
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