1: Michelangelo was 17 years old.
“He’d just begun working on his first life-sized, three-dimensional sculpture: a nine-foot Hercules, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less.
Previously, Michelangelo had sculpted many smaller pieces. But none were three-dimensional. And he’d yet to sell a piece of his work.
But now, Michelangelo had made a decision that would change his life. He would create a sculpture to memorialize the life of his sponsor and mentor, Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had recently died.
“This was his first major project with a professional mindset,” Dan and Ben write. “He was no longer thinking or operating like a novice or amateur.”
Michelangelo began by convincing the foreman of the Florence Duomo Cathedral to sell him an unused block of marble from the cathedral courtyard.
He paid five golden florins for the marble, using most of his savings from two years working in the Medici palace.
Following Lorenzo’s death, Michelangelo was forced to move back home with his father, “who was skeptical about his son becoming an artist and hoped he’d go into business instead,” the authors note.
Michelangelo lied to his father, telling him “he’d been commissioned to make a sculpture and that the commissioner had already purchased the marble,” they write.
“This was a risky lie—if the project didn’t pay off, Michelangelo would likely have to concede to his father’s wishes” and give up his dream of being an artist.
2: Next, he secured a spot in the Duomo workshop and began creating models of Hercules with beeswax.
“He quickly concluded that he lacked requisite skill to create anything reflecting the true human form,” Dan and Ben note.
“How can I establish a figure, even the crudest outline, if I don’t know what I’m doing? How can I achieve anything but surface skin sculpture, exterior curves, outlines of bones, a few muscles brought into play? Effects. What do I know of the causes? The vital structure of a man that lies beneath the surface, and that my eye can’t see? How can I know what creates, from within, the shapes I see from without?” Irving Stone writes in a biographical novel, The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Learning anatomy became Michelangelo’s greatest goal.
“He determined that the only way he’d be able to draw and sculpt the human form with living vibrancy would be to study the intricacies and functions of the body directly—outside and in,” Dan and Ben write.
He began “awkwardly sneaking around” Santo Spirito, the charity hospital in Florence. He would sneak in at night to examine the corpses and leave before sunrise.
Doing so was another enormous risk. “Getting caught messing with corpses would, at the very least, get him placed in prison,” the authors note, “The worst case was that he could be sentenced to death.”
But he did it anyway and, in so doing, taught himself the intricacies of human anatomy.” He obsessed over the details,” Dan and Ben write, “how the muscles flexed, the veins pumped, and tendons stretched. He held and cut into every organ.”
Then, the next day, he would sketch what he learned.
“Anatomy, more than anything else, became Michelangelo’s discipline and mastery. To quote a future pupil of his: ‘Through dissection Michelangelo studied every known animal, and did so many human dissections that it outnumbers that of those who are professional in that field. This is a considerable influence that shows in his mastery in anatomy that is not matched by other painters . . .
‘He worked on so many human anatomies that those who have spent their lives at it and made it their profession hardly know as much as he does.'”
Michelangelo used his newfound knowledge to sketch “version after version, to get a feel for Hercules’ posture and emotions. . .
“His knowledge of anatomy inspired him to depict Hercules’ power as a uniting force between torso and limbs,” they write. “Clothed in only a small loin skin, the bare-chested and strong Hercules leaned on his massive wooden club.
3: Then, he began work on the marble slab. Which he nearly ruined. “He’d cut too deeply to free the neck, and now his strong chisel on the emerging shoulder muscles sent stressful vibrations into the head. If the marble cracked at the narrow point, Hercules would lose his head.”
Fortunately, the head stayed in place.
In time, “the anatomy of the marble began matching his clay model: the commanding chest, ripped forearms, and thighs like tree trunks,” they write.
When he was done, word spread quickly about the Hercules. He was offered 100 golden florins, a large sum of money, for the piece.
Michelangelo was now 19 years old.
“To sculpt Hercules at the level he aspired,” Dan and Ben write, “Michelangelo developed mastery of human anatomy to a degree no other sculptor ever had or would.
“Aiming for what seemed impossible, he made many mistakes, got serious and focused, took risks, and ultimately completed a tangible project that was beyond noteworthy.”
Was Michelangelo born a great artist?
No, the authors say. “He became one and then ultimately reached legendary levels by continually pursuing what [they] call the 10x process.
Which we will explore in detail beginning tomorrow.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Do I agree with the author’s assessment that Michelangelo wasn’t born a great artist but became one? What elements of Michelangelo’s story line up with my own?
Action: Journal about my answers to the questions above.
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