1 ALFONSO MASÓ Michelangelo Buonarroti: Awakening Yet Prisoner

Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
ALFONSO
MASÓ
Michelangelo
Buonarroti:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
–
George
Steiner:
Real
Presences
Translated
by
Marta
López‐Luaces,
Mercedes
Roffé,
Edwin
Lamboy
In
the
speculative
intuitions
of
the
aesthetic,
the
motions
of
spirit
are
not
those
of
an
arrow,
but
of
the
the
spiral
at
once
ascendant
and
retrogressive,
as
is
the
stairway
in
the
library
of
Montaigne.
(George
Steiner)
1
All
art
keeps
hidden
within
a
whole
bazaar
of
that
which
cannot
be
taken
for
granted,
after
feeling
the
attraction
to
a
form
and
a
narrative
that
exempt
us,
if
that
is
what
we
want,
from
going
further.
1.
Francis
Bacon,
Figure
With
Meat,
1954.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti,
Awakening
(between
1513
and
1536)
1
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Every
creative
process
implies
a
projection,
a
transferring
onto
the
matter
of
the
person
who
leads
it
.
.
.
not
trying
to
hide
but
to
bare,
beyond
the
visible
flesh,
the
lives,
the
buried
faces,
presences
probably
unthought‐of
by
both
himself
and
others;
amplified,
probably
only
partially
softened,
travestied,
transsexualized,
transubstantiated
in
a
theatre
of
the
world
where
it
is
possible
to
show
oneself
under
the
appearance
of
enlivened
signs
and
objects.
Michelangelo
discovered
too
many
things
about
sculpture
to
be
understood
by
his
contemporaries.
From
there
on,
nothing
is
easier
for
the
observer
than
making
other
people’s
excuses
his
or
her
own,
categories
such
as
“perfection”
or
“the
appropriate,”
unknown
to
the
standards
of
the
artist’s
times
and
even
to
his
own
intentions
and
possibilities,
shackled
by
centuries
of
incomprehension;
celebrated
even
for
his
biggest
and
most
superficial
sculpture,
the
David,
a
work
of
youth
and
dissatisfaction,
too
much
wrapping
for
such
little
content,
such
little
life,
such
little
contact
with
the
world.
A
monumental
anecdote
that
diverts
attention
away
from
the
immediate
drama
where
other
less
obvious
presences
strive
to
appear,
to
remain.
In
Real
Presences
(1989),
George
Steiner
argues
that,
at
present,
the
endless
outpouring
of
the
unimportant2
has
given
way,
in
the
academic‐journalistic
production
of
the
humanities,
to
the
proliferation
of
exchanges
of
a
tertiary
order,
where
debates
expand
on
what
has
been
said
about
what
has
been
said
in
suffocating,
endogamic
spirals.
In
this
context,
the
possibility
to
access
the
real
presence
of
the
poem,
the
musical
piece,
the
painting
or
the
sculpture
has
died
long
ago.
It
is
vital
to
re‐educate
ourselves
for
the
direct
contemplation
of
phenomena
and
the
arts.
Going
out
to
“the
encounter
with
immediacy
and
transcendence
in
the
aesthetic
is,
of
necessity,
an
argument
on
Logos
and
word”
(idem,
p.
50).
2
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Art
prepares
us
to
see,
since
the
“best
readings
about
art
are
art”
(idem,
p.
17).
In
order
to
be
able
to
face
artistic
creation,
it
is
essential
to
overcome
the
perplexity
that
comes
when
we
are
in
direct
contemplation,
freeing
ourselves
from
the
headphones
that
continuously
talk
to
us
about
the
secondary
and
tertiary,
about
someone’s
life
and
miracles,
and
avoid
that
which
would
keep
hold
of
us,
which
would
make
us
feel
extremely
uncomfortable
as
tourists
of
knowledge.3
The
work
of
art
awaits
to
question
us,
to
be
questioned,
to
be
transformed
and
be
able
to
transform
us
in
the
encounter,
as
long
as
we
come
ready
to
set
out
to
the
initiatic
journey
that
is
going
to
take
place,
inevitably,
if
we
are
willing
to
inhabit
art
like
a
living
fragment
of
a
history
that
includes
us,
and
as
such,
remains
unfinished.
Michelangelo
is
an
amazing
case
of
lack
of
appreciation
even
to
this
day.
There
is
always
someone
among
us
who
considers
himself
or
herself
a
learned
person
and
yet
is
unable
to
remember
Michelangelo
except
for
the
David;
someone
who
has
probably
read
somewhere
that
the
artist
left
many
sculptures
“unfinished.”
This
theory
of
the
unfinished
and
abandoned
works,
lacking
any
direct
experience
of
the
real
presence,
keeps
recurring
in
all
too
many
books
and
other
academic
sources.
In
order
to
reach
the
unknown,
the
hidden,
the
postponed,
the
unutterable,
and
to
imbue
it
with
the
necessary
traits
to
show
its
unavoidability
(since
what
we
can’t
see
or
we
don’t
want
to
see
is
also
unavoidable)
was
part
of
Michelangelo’s
conception
of
art,
of
what
devoting
his
life
to
art—his
inexcusable
duty—meant
to
him.
An
incorruptible
honesty
and
commitment
to
those
artistic
principles
are
at
the
root
of
his
enormous
contributions;
and
yet,
they
are
also
the
reason
of
his
extreme
loneliness
in
the
face
of
the
incomprehension
toward
his
discoveries,
and
the
lack
of
3
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
a
valid
interlocutor.
This
lack
of
understanding
becomes
apparent
in
the
vehement
accusations
of
fickleness
or
senile
eccentricity—as
it
was
in
the
case
of
the
Rondanini
Pietà.
In
what
sense
was
it
unfinished?
Michelangelo
worked
on
it
until
four
or
five
days
before
his
death,
as
on
so
many
other
works,
willingly,
not
in
order
to
fulfill
a
commission.
Here,
he
is
not
trying
to
reproduce
the
commonly
accepted
iconography
of
piety,
but
the
deep
emotions
that
witnessing
such
a
moment
would
provoke,
the
immediate
empathy
with
the
grief
of
those
two
bodies—to
find
oneself,
see
oneself,
experience
oneself,
simultaneously,
in
those
two
bodies
that
suffer
and
keep
close
to
one
another,
to
embody
their
own
construction‐destruction.
Michelangelo
was
deeply
religious.
In
this
work
he
answers
only
to
his
God
and
himself.
And
for
him,
at
that
point
in
his
life,
it
would
have
been
insulting
to
present
a
dramatic
tale
that
would
prevail
over
the
real
presence
of
the
extreme
grief,
the
extreme
abandonment
of
that
moment,
a
moment
he
can
only
understand
by
embodying
it,
by
being
simultaneously
those
two
beings—himself,
abandoned
in
the
arms
of
that
brief
life
he
still
has
left,
and
notwithstanding,
still
supporting,
still
upholding
the
dying
one
on
his
own
shoulders;
he
himself
being
the
piety,
piety
of
himself,
piety
of
the
sorrow
and
the
guilt,
sorrow
and
guilt
that
pierce
our
invisible
lives
(whether
or
not
it
is
at
the
expense
of
the
divine).
Why
that
decision,
why
that
image?
Suddenly,
titans
are
of
no
use
anymore.
It
is
necessary
to
lighten
the
weight
for
the
task
of
leaving
the
immediacy
of
humanity.
It
is
necessary
to
drain
away
the
body,
to
erode
it,
to
erase
it,
to
blur
it,
to
fragment
it;
it
is
necessary
to
offer
one’s
remains
as
part
of
an
expiation,
to
scratch
in
it
the
body
itself,
punish
it,
punish‐compensate,
furiously,
fearfully,
warmly,
for
the
offences,
the
indelible
faults,
and
to
offer
oneself,
already
a
corpse,
to
support
the
weight
of
what
cannot
be
effaced.
4
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Is
it
empathy
with
other
distant
remains,
with
other,
very
close,
remains
that
we
will
never
get
to
rebuild?
Remains
of
ruins,
like
the
ones
in
the
ancient
friezes,
deep
human
remains.
Ruins
added
here
voluntarily,
carefully
tied
to
the
side
by
a
part
whose
only
function
is
to
join
and
hold—a
right
arm
separated
from
the
body,
repeated
(the
other
right
arm
is
hidden
behind
the
back),
a
second
right
arm,
a
remain
as
an
axis,
a
remain
whose
remaining
vigor
contrasts
with
the
other
arms
tied
to
the
body,
to
the
immediate
torso,
to
which
it
couldn’t
belong
not
even
in
a
different
time.
Scratched,
over
scratched,
the
torso;
surpassed
the
materic
limit
that
could
have
allowed
the
construction
of
an
anatomy,
barely
functional.
Through
it,
we
get
access
to
something
more
than
just
a
representation.
We
are
invited
to
be
part
of
a
living
process,
an
active
process
of
dematerialization
that
is
not
completely
conquered
by
death
as
long
as
there
is
a
persisting
thread
of
breath
to
sustain
itself,
to
sustain
ourselves,
to
hold
itself
and
to
hold
us;
to
transport
one
another,
to
be
able
to
be,
through
grief,
through
the
awareness
of
a
separation,
of
a
past,
irreversible
split.
In
the
face
of
the
current
erosion
of
death,
there
is
no
need
for
mirrors
to
hold
the
earthly
beauty
that
mellowed
the
days;
there
is
no
longer
a
need
for
anatomic
definition,
but
a
spiritual
intensification.
Sustaining
oneself
in
the
unavoidable
paradox
demands
not
to
lose
the
tension,
the
emotion,
and
the
expression,
unretainable
by
the
representation
resources
known
at
the
time.
It
demands
to
choose
between
gravity
and
the
embrace,
it
demands
to
be
at
the
same
time
weight
and
lightness
so
that
the
body,
which
is
two
bodies,
faints
while
ascending
and
ascends
while
fainting—through
the
intense
curve
that
helps
to
rise
the
combined
matter,
through
the
enormous
weight
that
the
disjointed
arm
(the
extra
arm)
conveys
to
the
legs,
which
have
already
left
this
life.
5
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
We
had
seen
remains
from
antiquity
that
were
enormously
expressive.
Michelangelo
unveils
for
us
an
aesthetic
of
remains
and
offers
it
to
us
from
the
union
between
a
misunderstood
expressionism
and
an
unconceivable
collage.
That
right
arm,
which
is
also
that
of
Michelangelo,
had
been
waiting
to
reappear
in
the
Rondanini
Pietà
at
least
for
thirty
years,
as
we
can
see
in
the
Pietà
he
drew
at
the
time
(1520‐26):
the
arm
of
the
given
artist,
recurrently
defeated
by
the
weight
of
death—something
that
reappears
also
in
the
Palestrina
Pietà.
In
that
drawing,
the
Virgin
appears
in
the
back,
just
sketched,
holding,
blurred,
willingly
relegated
to
the
background,
one
more
time.
We
find
the
same
blurring‐fusion
on
both
paper
and
stone
.
.
.
until
his
last
Pietà.
It
was
perhaps
then
that
Michelangelo
let
himself
die,
having
already
given
a
closure
to
his
last
struggle,
the
answer
finally
found,
breaking
up
the
identification
of
beauty
in
art
with
beauty
in
the
body,
once
he
had
reached
his
full
strength
and
virtuosity
in
the
mimesis
of
representation.
4
6
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
2.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti.
Pietà,
1530‐36
7
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
3.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti.
Rondanini
Pietà,
1552‐
64
8
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
4.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti.
Palestrina
Pietà,
1550‐52
9
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
We
should
search
for
the
bases,
the
expressive
advances
that
Michelangelo
contributes
to
sculpture,
which
we
can
already
find
in
the
big
medallions
contemporary
of
the
David,
such
as
the
Tondo
Taddei,
in
regard
to
which
the
argument
of
the
lack
of
time
to
finish
the
work
was
probably
first
heard.5
In
them,
different
kinds
of
surfaces
and
finishes
were
used
with
the
purpose
and
function
of
conveying
the
pulse
of
stone
to
the
expressive
devices
of
carving,
and,
by
doing
so,
broadening
the
diversity
and
intensity
of
the
melodic
levels
at
play
in
the
highly
structured
scores
his
art
works
will
always
be—volumes,
mass,
signs,
traces,
trails,
embodied
in
the
cadenzas
of
shadow
and
the
replies
of
light.
Almost
simultaneously
and
in
a
similar
seek‐and‐find
spirit,
he
works
on
the
S.
Mateo
(1504),
for
Sta.
Maria
de
Fiore,
in
Florence,
although
it
wouldn´t
be
finally
placed
there;
the
“unfinished”
quality
of
this
sculpture
is
a
preview
of
what
he
will
do
in
the
Slaves.
But
before
dealing
with
the
Slaves
or
Prisoners,
let’s
consider
the
relevance
of
the
off­scene
when
working
on
or
interacting
with
the
works
of
art
we
observe.
An
off‐
scene
that
begins
long
before
these
works
exist,
expands
in
the
simultaneous
time
and
extends
without
interruption
up
to
our
most
immediate
now,
that’s
why
the
recurrence
and
broadening
of
meaning
continue
to
modify
the
works,
updating
them
or
even
sometimes
returning
them
to
life
as
long
as
our
dialog
with
them
is
kept
alive.
6
Why
else
would
Francis
Bacon
place,
several
centuries
later,
the
untouchable
figures
of
the
vociferous
Popes
inside
those
blocks
of
translucent
marble,
enclosed,
just
like
the
Slaves
were,
but
now
without
any
possibility
of
being
rescued?
Francis
Bacon
gets
to
the
bottom
of
the
imperious
immediacy
of
everything
affecting
Michelangelo,
completely
identifying
with
him,
summoned
by
the
omnipresent,
threatening,
imperious
faces
that
chased
the
artist
not
only
while
dreaming,
but
also
10
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
while
awake,
now
that
he
doesn’t
fear—improbable—excommunication.
Bacon
offers
us
a
persistent
gallery
of
vociferous
popes
that
is
not
the
product
of
a
passing
fancy
but
a
long
confrontation,
a
long
struggle
with
something
even
beyond
the
matter
he
imprisons,
with
an
external
force
intending
to
control
your
life,
to
judge
you,
to
intimidate
you,
to
harass
you,
to
condemn
you.
The
result
is
a
struggle
in
which
the
artist
needs
to
represent,
once
and
again,
that
so‐called
supreme
authority,
imprisoned
by
its
own
excesses,
its
own
powers.
It
is
a
struggle
that
needs
to
be
fought,
over
and
over,
so
that
it
can
overcome
the
power
of
its
own
representation,
made
with
pencils,
brushes,
iron
chisels
.
.
.
and,
by
doing
so,
change
both
present
and
history.
Each
one
of
the
represented
popes
is
tied
forever
to
his
scream
and
his
enveloping
throne,
fenced
in
with
his
own
rope‐net,
submerged,
trapped
inside
a
transparent
block
of
marble
unable
to
reach
glory.
That
scream
that
seems
to
be
a
threat,
is
it
the
scream
of
the
defeated,
his
own
excommunication,
the
emergence
of
his
own
hell?
Is
it
possible
to
be
at
the
summit
and
an
outlaw
at
the
same
time?
Francis
Bacon
shows
us
that
it
is
possible,
by
showing
us
his
many
proscriptions
that
release
him
from
following
the
rules,
from
suffering
the
prisons
they
impose,
instead
of
other
ones,
apparently
chosen
and
deeply
assumed—the
invisible
prison
that
isolates
you
from
your
coetaneous
when
you
chose
to
ignore
the
rule
that
lies,
that
overpraises,
in
order
to
maintain
the
categories
prescribed
by
convenience.
Even
though
those
in
charge
of
disguising
and
repainting
the
private
parts—being
either
physical
or
metaphysical—will
always
have
their
resources,
Bacon
knows
how
to
make
us
not
doubt.
And
he
does
it
by
grasping
human
abjection
by
its
lapels
and
making
it
sit
in
the
chair
of
the
one
being
portrayed.
That
is
how
his
popes
get
to
fill
the
gallery
of
the
chosen
ones—howling.
11
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Power
has
changed
sides.
For
a
while,
the
supreme
power
belongs
to
painting,
sculpture,
drawing,
representation
.
.
.
to
the
observers
who
stop
being
so
when
they
assume
the
involvement
and
responsibility
that
a
work
of
art
allows
to
and
demands
from
them.
Bacon
sits
the
popes
in
the
chair
of
the
ones
being
portrayed
and
broadens,
continues,
and
intensifies
the
reply
that
had
been
initiated
by
a
Michelangelo
harassed
by
incomprehension
and
intolerance,
even
if
disguised
as
veneration.
Bacon
places
himself
next
to
Michelangelo
and
shows
us
what
is
implicit
in
his
works—an
immediacy
that
was
relegated
to
the
background
but,
like
it
happens
with
any
great
work
of
art,
is
present
in
that
which
we
will
be
able
to
see,
even
much
later.
In
this
scenario
those
who
are
off‐scene
(the
obs‐cene)
are
superimposed,
captured
from
Michelangelo’s
Sistine
Chapel,
the
Prigioni
and
the
last
pieties.
With
his
representations,
Bacon
gives
us
perspective
in
order
to,
among
other
things,
arrive
to
a
thorough
comprehension
of
the
clues
regarding
the
works
of
Michelangelo
that
remain
blocked
in
our
contemporary
minds
due
to
the
still
alive
myth
of
the
unfinished
work,
defying
the
logic
of
all
those
who
have
eyes
to
see
and
willingness
to
read
original
documents—in
painting,
drawing
or
stone
.
.
.
the
only
valid
testament
from
someone
who
embraced
that
kind
of
writing.
We
can
think
of
a
germinal
gesture,
a
piece
of
matter
scraped
by
an
intense
desire
to
vivify,
to
make
something
appear.
The
word
“emergence”
arises
from
the
intense,
compelling
need
to
appear,
given
the
intuition
and
the
desire
that
there
will
be
others
who
will
listen
to
us,
beyond
the
confined
moment
we
struggle
to
set
free.
We
will
suffer
with
the
represented
pain
and
will
find
out
that
there,
in
that
initial
grief,
a
threshold
even
more
painful
opens
up,
in
the
time
of
persistence,
as
a
sign
of
life,
since
upon
arriving
we
had
not
noticed
the
disturbance,
the
demands
of
that
part
of
us
that
is
troubled,
as
if
it
just
began
to
discover
that
it
belongs
to
something
that
is
12
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
clearly
implied,
but
does
not
show
itself
completely.
A
part
of
us
that,
nonetheless,
revives,
biting,
an
exhausted
“I,”
almost
stuck
.
.
.
to
the
walled
caves
of
the
unseen
.
.
.
where
the
pestiferous
slime
would
start
to
beat,
under
the
distant
caress
of
a
pair
of
newly
discovered
eyes
as
if
they
were
ours.
There
are
art
branches
that
prefer
to
avoid
many
or
most
of
these
considerations,
which
they
would
experience
like
prisons
of
other
goals.
We
will
bump
into
them,
however,
while
considering
doubts
and
resources,
in
some
of
the
crossroads
that
will
still
remain
forbidden.
5.
Francis
Bacon.
Untitled
(Pope)
1954
13
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
6.
Francis
Bacon,
Head
VI,
1949
7.
Francis
Bacon,
Study
for
the
Head
of
a
Screaming
Pope,
1952
14
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
8.
Francis
Bacon,
Study
after
Velázquez's
Portrait
of
Pope
Innocent
X,
1953
15
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
9.
Francis
Bacon,
Study
for
Figures
at
the
Base
of
a
Crucifixion,
1944
“I
shall
be
arguing
that
we
crave
remission
from
direct
encounter
with
the
‘real
presence’
.
.
.
We
flinch
from
the
immediate
pressures
of
mystery
in
poetic,
in
aesthetic
acts
of
creation
as
we
do
from
the
realization
of
our
diminished
humanity,
of
all
that
is
literally
bestial
in
the
murderousness
and
gadgetry
of
this
age.
The
secondary
is
our
narcotic
.
.
.
we
are
guarded
by
the
numbing
drone
of
.
.
.
the
16
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
theoretical,
from
the
often
harsh,
imperious
radiance
of
sheer
presence”
(Steiner,
p.
49).
10.
Camille
Claudel,
Study
for
Avarice
and
Lust,
1885
11.
Louise
Bourgeois,
Blooming
Janus,
1968
12.
Berlinde
de
Bruyckere,
Into
One­Another,
2010
17
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
13.
Berlinde
De
Bruyckere,
We
Are
All
Flesh,
2009
Why
to
bring
up
here
the
works
of
these
sculptresses?
Actually,
it
is
a
long
story
.
.
.
the
story
of
a
long
narrative,
in
progress,
we
have
always
said
we
lacked
the
words
for—always
blaming
the
messenger.
We
didn’t
lack
the
words;
we
only
lacked
determination
of
knowledge.
Words
encountered
an
emptiness
they
can
only
fill
with
a
simulacrum
or
addressing
aspects
that
were
peripheral.
These
images
uncover
sooner
and
better
than
us
some
of
the
most
eloquent
aspects
of
Michelangelo’s
sculptures.
Eloquent
but
not
apparent
to
the
immediacy
of
observation.
These
are
aspects
that
are
not
present
in
the
narrative
that
comes
to
meet
us
when
we
first
face
the
work,
but
they
are
captured
by
the
signs
that
are
imbedded
in
the
matter
and
beat
behind
its
skin;
because
if
that
“behind,”
which
includes
us,
did
not
exist,
neither
would
the
deep
space
that
art
has
always
promised
to
open
up
for
us
behind
the
flatness
of
the
evident.
Those
works
are
part
of
a
present‐day
off‐scene
that
includes
us
as
well,
which
after
nourishing
themselves
on
Michelangelo’s
work,
transform
it,
since
they
uncover
and
broaden
some
aspects
that
would
seem
fragmentary.
What
happened
finally
to
the
fragment
in
the
arts?
Louise
Bourgeois
as
well
as
psychoanalysis
showed
us
how
the
fragment—the
Tao
already
knew
it—ends
up
being
or
looking
like
or
reflecting
the
whole.
The
small
head
that
Claudel
shows
us
is
also
a
fragment.
Both,
Bourgeois’
Blooming
Janus
and
this
head
by
Claudel
seize
us
in
a
net
of
common
veins,
of
internal
18
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
fluids
that
confront
us
with
the
bestial
quality
of
being,
with
an
atavistic
“I”
that
bites
our
lips
to
revive
in
us
the
distant
taste
of
our
own
blood—astonished,
shaken,
forgotten
witnesses
of
a
struggle
between
a
stuttering
beast,
with
no
traceable
arguments,
and
a
culture‐as‐master
with
an
infinity
of,
evanescent
reasonings.
Berlinde
is
even
more
clear
about
the
brutal
paradox
of
finding
ourselves
between
the
stage
and
the
origin
.
.
.
and
draws
us
and
throws
us
into
a
sublime
sense
of
belonging
next
to
the
borders
of
matter,
like
an
identitary
wrapping
within
a
shared
skin—with
the
dead
animal,
with
the
unbearable
absence
of
a
beloved
one.
In
images
embodying
other
images,
something
is
reborn;
with
a
different
face
but
preserving
consciousnesses
of
past
times
that
come
to
us
with
their
memory
intensified
by
recollections
that
kept
on
growing,
even
after
the
autonomy
acquired
by
the
work
from
the
moment
it
was
created.
Something
is
reborn
in
the
public
intimacy,
from
the
transference
of
an
“I”
that
knows
to
be
a
collective
“I,”
to
the
matter
that
becomes
a
common
skin,
over
the
pain
and
the
wretched
fluid
that
it
promises
to
lead
to
some
kind
of
light.
Art
will
continue
to
have
direct
access
to
that
open‐body
genesis
in
which
art
itself
originates,
a
gestation
where
the
new
beings
are
not
built
from
unpredictable
remains
of
the
body
but
with
living
fragments,
of
overwritten
matters,
like
translucid
palimpsests.
Were
did
we
learn
how
to
read
matter?
In
art
itself,
in
the
works
of
art
before
our
eyes
and
hands,
in
art
about
art
and
in
the
poetry
about
art.
Nobody
taught
us
the
Prado
Museum
better
than
Rafael
Alberti.
He
introduced
us,
quietly,
to
the
Rembrandt’s
half‐lights,
when
“light
made
its
entrance
in
the
deepest
basements”
(Alberti,
1967,
p.
78)*.
The
Prado
gone
round
despite
the
smell
of
wax
and
“just
cried”
resin
(idem,
p.
12‐14)7:
before
Steiner
reminded
us
of
the
real
presence.
*
Except
for
Steiner’s
Real
Presences,
quoted
from
the
English
edition,
all
other
quotations
will
be
rendered
in
our
translation.
(T.N.)
19
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
The
palimpsest,
under
the
skin,
under
the
immediately
shown—the
subtle
remain,
still
present
in
the
vestiges
upon
which
it
rebuilds
itself.
The
Pietà
is
a
palimpsest,
scraped
in
order
to
find
what
is
already,
fleetingly
written,
in
the
stone
itself.
Louise
Bourgeois,
Camille
Claudel,
Jana
Sterbach,
Berlinde
de
Bruyckere
will
connect
the
Pietàs
with
the
Prisons,
as
if
the
works
they
contribute
with
were
the
missing
links.
The
battle
of
the
flesh
with
the
flesh,
the
battle
of
that
part
of
the
body
that
has
been
castrated
from
us,
pulled
out,
removed,
condemned,
by
the
vociferous
pope.
The
battle
to
emerge.
Art
is
the
tool
that
humans
found
in
order
to
restore
and
reach,
but
mostly
to
restore,
to
recover,
what
we
feel
was
ours
and
was
taken
from
us;
to
overcome
the
expulsion
and
the
mutilation
of
the
body
and
the
knowledge
plagued
with
monsters
against
reason,
intuition,
and
innocence.
The
body
is
dishonored
by
the
blessed
hand,
penetrated
by
its
tongue,
pushed
into
a
disproportionate
shame
for
its
incapability
to
control
its
internal
streams,
by
the
humiliation
caused
by
the
self‐inflicted
remorse
so
mercilessly
induced,
sowed
like
bitter
seeds,
in
the
face
of
its
awakening
and
feeling.
Because
it
wasn’t
born
from
what
it
should
have
been
born,
it
was
born
already
with
its
condemnation
marked
by
iron
and
fire.
Louise
Bourgeois,
Camille
Claudel,
Jana
Sterbach,
Berlinde
de
Bruyckere,
join
together
in
order
to
expel
an
intrusion
that
shows,
in
front
of
many
different
types
of
stakes,
their
deed
of
ownership
over
the
bodies
and
their
“souls.”
Each
work
we
are
showing
here
could
also
be
entitled,
“Awakening,”
following
Michelangelo’s
sculpture’s
metaphoric
sense,
and
considering
his
sculpture’s
meaning,
which
these
sculptresses
share
as
well.
By
doing
so,
they
develop
different
ways
to
connect
to
distinct
kinds
of
materialization—a
materialization
that
both
discloses
and
intensifies
all
the
aspects‐feelings
they
share.
(The
languages,
images
and
signs,
and
moreover,
what
lives
behind
them,
gain
more
density
with
the
connections
they
20
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
establish,
while
what
they
represent
keeps
growing.)
Michelangelo’s
sculpture
grows
as
its
repercussions
grow.
And
as
a
consequence
of
this
correlation,
those
repercussions
grow
as
well.
The
beating
“lifeless”
matter.
A
re‐signification
in
the
constant
embodiment
of
signification
and
metaphor.
We
left
far
behind,
because
of
its
lack
of
meaning,
the
initial
debate—finished‐
unfinished.
Each
work
mentioned
here
will
be
unfinished
as
long
as
it
exists,
as
long
as
we
can
continue
enriching
it—even
diminishing
it.
Something
else
is
the
need
to
analyze
in
order
to
tell
apart
understanding
from
misunderstanding,
as
if,
every
time,
we
were
starting
to
open
a
piece
of
marble
in
order
to
solve
the
enigma—where
should
we
stand,
where
should
we
to
stop
to
consider,
and
up
to
where
and
why?
Are
all
of
Van
Gogh’s
paintings,
Velázquez’s
Meninas,
the
Victory
of
Samothrace,
and
so
many
other
works
of
art
that
fulfill
our
collective
imaginary,
revealing
one
another,
addressing
one
another,
equally
unfinished?
We
will
see
better,
inside
the
closed
stone,
the
open
stone,
as
long
as
we
have
learned
to
observe,
in
depth,
what
others
have
already
seen.
What
did
Michelangelo
observe
when
he
dared
to
break
the
limit
of
what
was
accepted
in
his
time?
He
probably
saw,
perhaps
in
more
depth
than
others
,
not
the
future,
which
nobody
knows,
but
the
past
that
was
present
in
other
works
of
art—the
titans’
immense
weakness,
their
dramatic
impotence
in
front
of
so
many
divine
intentions,
the
enormous
weight
of
guilt,
shouted
at
their
faces
by
every
emissary‐gargoyle,
shouted
by
their
own
grief
barely
amputated
each
day.
Who
can
decide,
in
the
field
of
art,
the
concept
of
finishing,
whether
or
not
it
is
appropriate
to
decide
that
an
author
doesn’t
have
anything
else
to
contribute
to
his
work?
Why
so
much
debate,
regarding
so
many
works
of
art,
about
whether
they
21
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
are
finished
or
not?
Could
it
be
because
there
can’t
be
any
proof
on
an
unfinished
work,
since
common
sense,
there,
in
the
depths,
says:
Everything
that
is
just
half‐
done,
that
was
abandoned
hastily
or
placidly,
with
the
purpose
of
finishing
it
later,
always
presents
an
unavoidable
disorder,
a
lack
of
agreement,
misplacements
of
the
elements
in
dialogue.
All
of
these,
while
speaking
about
art,
would
materialize,
without
remission,
in
lack
of
harmony,
rhythmic
correspondences,
in
lack
of
balance
between
mass
and
emptiness,
between
tensions
and
energies,
between
pulito­
nonpulito,
between
lights
and
shadows,
and
between
the
figure
and
its
surroundings
or,
as
in
these
cases,
confining
matter.
8
And
what
if
we
only
saw
harmony
in
these
works,
and
everything
were
balance,
correspondence,
tension,
dialogue
among
its
parts
and
elements,
everything
necessity
.
.
.
if
everything
found
its
place…
in
unceasing
flows
of
meaning?
What
if
we
saw
all
this
in
each
of
the
four
large
pieces
Michelangelo
worked
on
at
the
same
time?
If
you
want
to
see
a
giant
collapsing,
try
to
remove,
mentally,
the
matter
that
is
supposedly
spare—the
one
calculated
and
worked
down
to
the
last
detail,
and
then
courageously
exposed
to
centuries
of
incomprehension.
When
Jana
Sterbach
reminds
us
that
the
supposedly
spare
matter
is
also
flesh,
everything
gains
an
unexpected
dimension.
It
is
then
when
we
recall
that,
even
if
in
a
different
way,
Francis
Bacon,
Louise
Bourgeois,
Berlinde
de
Bruyckere,
and
Camille
Claudel
were
telling
us
the
same
thing.
22
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
14.
Jana
Sterbach,
Vanitas,
1987.
15.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti,
Awakening
(between
1513
and
1536)
A
slave
who
awakes
is
not
immersed
in
half‐carved
stone
but
in
soft,
heavy,
slippery,
sticky
flesh
that
melts,
reproachfully,
with
his
own
flesh,
which
illuminates
it,
and
defeats
it,
and
dignifies
it,
and
possesses
it
.
.
.
heavy,
stuck,
inseparable
like
guilt
and
origin,
intensified
in
every
nightmare
of
its
present
future.
23
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Notes:
1.
“In
the
speculative
intuitions
of
the
aesthetic,
the
motions
of
spirit
are
not
those
of
an
arrow,
but
of
the
spiral
at
once
ascendant
and
retrogressive
as
is
the
stairway
in
the
library
of
Montaigne”
(Steiner,
pp.
36‐37).
2.
“At
present,
in
fact,
the
principal
energies
and
animus
of
the
academic‐journalistic
outpouring
in
the
humanities
is
of
a
tertiary
order”
(Steiner,
pp.
39‐40).
3.
“I
shall
be
arguing
that
we
crave
emission
from
direct
encounter
with
the
‘real
presence’
(.
.
.)
We
seek
the
immunities
of
indirection.
In
the
agency
of
the
critic,
reviewer
or
mandarin
commentator,
we
welcome
those
who
can
domesticate,
who
can
secularize
the
mystery
and
summons
of
creation”
(Idem,
p.
39).
4.
About
the
last
pietàs
Giulio
Carlo
Argán
says:
“In
his
last
sculptures,
the
main
subject
is
the
Pietà,
understood
not
as
a
lamentation
but
as
a
presentation
to
the
world,
so
that
it
feels
ashamed
of
its
guilt,
of
the
body
of
the
dead
Christ.
But
the
artist
himself
partially
destroyed
the
Pietà
of
Santa
Maria
de
Fiore
(which
was
later
restored
by
Tiberi
Calgani),
begun
before
1550,
probably
because,
although
many
of
its
sections
were
still
unfinished,
it
didn’t
reach
the
perfection
of
the
Pauline
Chapel
paintings
he
was
working
on.
A
perfection
he
does
reach,
in
contrast,
in
the
Rondanini
Pietà,
through
a
very
tormented
process,
judging
from
the
visible
regrets
and
destructions
the
artist
imposed
to
a
piece
he
still
would
work
on
a
few
days
before
his
death,
and
which
was
supposed
to
be
placed
in
his
tomb.
Here,
the
artist
himself
presents
the
piece
as
a
fragment—almost
a
thought
that
cannot
be
expressed
except
by
truncated
phrases
and
unfinished
accents,
by
sudden
rhythmic
outbursts
that
wane
with
a
similar
swiftness”
(Argan,
p.
76).
5.
Against
the
exculpatory
and
often
hagiographic
theories
that
Michelangelo’s
disciple
and
biographer
Arsenio
Condivi
proposes,
avoiding
as
much
as
possible
dealing
with
the
works
he
considers
unfinished
and
on
which
Michelangelo
doesn’t
give
any
explanations,
we
can
gather
from
the—scattered—
data
Condivi
himself
provides
that
Michelangelo
had
enough
24
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
uninterrupted
time
to
work
on
the
slaves
initially
destined
to
the
tomb
of
Julius
II.
Proof
of
this
is
the
fact
that
Michelangelo
moved
to
Florence,
his
home
town,
the
four
large
blocks
while
the
pope
was
still
alive
(around
1511),
and
was
able
to
go
back
to
them
until
1534,
year
in
which
he
leaves
Florence
for
good.
5.1.
In
order
to
know
those
possibilities
we
have
chosen
testimonies
by
Vasari
and
Condivi,
the
biographers
who
had
personal
access
to
Michelangelo.
“During
the
pontificate
of
Adrian
VI
(January
1522—September
1523),
Michelangelo
chose
to
remain
in
Florence
working
on
Julius
II’s
tomb”
(Vasari,
p.
49).
Although,
if
we
take
into
account
what
Vasari
himself
wrote
right
before,
on
page
46
about
Leo
X’s
arrival
in
1513,
he
should
have
actually
said
he
chose
not
to
interrupt
his
work
on
the
tomb.
When
the
pope
commissioned
from
Michelangelo
the
façade
of
S.
Lorenzo
in
Florence,
he
promised
the
artist
“that
he
would
also
work
on
the
sculptures
of
the
tomb
as
long
as
he
stayed
in
Florence,
as
in
fact
he
had
already
started
to
do.”
5.2
Condivi
shows
us
Michelangelo
working
on
the
Slaves
“long
before”
the
arrival
of
Adrian
VI:
“When
he
returned
to
Florence
and
confirmed,
as
it
was
stated,
that
the
pope’s
fervor
was
completely
waned,
Michelangelo
felt
so
hurt
that
he
was
inactive
for
a
while,
not
doing
a
thing,
feeling
unhappy
of
having
wasted
so
much
time
in
all
those
things.
Nonetheless,
he
continued
to
work
on
the
tomb
with
some
marbles
he
had
at
home”—Young
Slave,
256
cm
height,
Atlas
Slave,
277
cm,
Bearded
Slave,
263
cm,
Awakening
Slave,
267
cm.
(Condivi,
p.
76).
5.3.
Regarding
these
facts,
Vasari
writes,
“Thus,
Michelangelo
spent
several
years
extracting
and
choosing
blocks
of
marble
(
.
.
.
)
From
Carrara
he
returned
to
Florence,
where
he
wasted
a
lot
of
time
taking
care
of
different
affairs”
(Vasari,
p.
48).
As
we
had
read
earlier,
even
if
he
doesn’t
give
any
precise
date,
Vasari
argues
that,
in
the
last
years
of
Julius
II’s
papacy
(1511‐1512),
“and
in
order
to
work
more
comfortably,
Michelangelo
requested
that
some
blocks
of
marble
were
moved
to
Florence,
were
sometimes
he
spent
the
summers,
trying
to
escape
Rome’s
unhealthy
air”
(Vasari,
p.
28).
25
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
5.4
This
period
of
continuous
work
on
the
Slaves
would
be
briefly
interrupted
in
1525.
“It
was
in
1525
when
the
Cardinal
of
Cortona
brought
the
young
Giorgio
Vasari
to
Florence,
where
he
had
the
young
man
work
as
an
apprentice
in
Michelangelo’s
workshop.
However,
Michelangelo
was
asked
to
go
back
to
Rome
by
Pope
Clement”
(p.
49).
Clement
sent
him
back
to
Florence
so
that
he
would
finish
S.
Lorenzo’s
Sacristy.
We
know
of
Michelangelo’s
habit
to
work
simultaneously
on
several
pieces.
The
siege
of
Florence
began
in
1529,
and
it
would
last
a
whole
year.
Michelangelo
took
part
in
the
planning
of
the
defense
and
he
remained
in
the
city—except
for
some
short
absences—until
1534.
5.5.
We
can
draw
some
conclusions
from
both
testimonies.
The
first
conclusion
would
be
the
amount
of
time
Michelangelo
had
at
his
disposal
to
work,
without
significant
interruptions
and
without
pressure,
on
the
marbles
he
had
at
home,
that
is,
the
blocks
of
the
slaves.
If
we
take
into
account
that
the
Vatican’s
piety
was
done
in
one
year
and
that,
according
to
Vasari,
Michelangelo
“needed
less
than
one
year”
(p.
61)
to
finish
the
two
sculptures
for
the
tomb
of
St.
Pietro
in
Cinvoli,
which
would
go
on
both
sides
of
the
Moses,
that
is,
Leah
and
Rachel
(1535),
we
shouldn’t
have
any
doubts
that
Michelangelo
had
the
possibility
to
finish
the
Slaves
with
ease,
especially
when
he
had
them
in
his
own
place.
The
same
can
be
said
if
we
take
into
account
that
“Michelangelo’s
talent
and
genius
were
unable
to
stay
inactive
.
.
.
Even
more,
as
he
himself
used
to
say,
using
the
hammer
kept
his
body
healthy”
(Vasari,
p.
68).
Thus,
it
is
impossible
to
believe
that
there
were
periods
of
boredom
when
he
comes
back
from
Carrara
or
Servezza,
where
he
was
extracting
marble,
or
even
in
other
times
during
his
life.
We
know
he
kept
working
on
the
Rondanini
Pietà
up
to
four
or
five
days
before
his
death,
when
he
was
eighty‐nine
years
old.
5.6.
The
second
conclusion
we
can
draw
is
in
regards
to
the
almost
non‐existent
relevance
that
both
Vasari
and
Condivi
grant
to
the
slaves,
which
they
consider
a
few
more
unfinished
statues,
left
like
that
by
Michelangelo
when
he
left
Florence
for
good
in
September
1534.
Actually,
both
biographers
avoid
dealing
with
these
works,
which
they
only
mention
in
passing.
Undoubtedly,
this
might
have
also
determined
the
subsequent
insensitivity
toward
these
pieces,
a
thoughtlessness
that
continues
up
to
now,
especially
the
general
26
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
appreciation
of
the
Slaves
as
inferior
pieces
in
comparison
to
other
works
such
as
the
David,
or
the
Vatican’s
Piety.
5.7.
In
very
few
occasions
Vasari
or
Condivi
stop
to
evaluate,
aesthetically,
the
“un‐finished.”
Vasari
argues,
about
S.
Lorenzo’s
Sacristy:
“The
Madonna
holds
the
child
with
only
one
hand;
she
leans
on
her
other
hand
and
bends
forward
to
feed
him.
Although
this
statue
was
not
completely
finished
(it
was
only
sketched
and
the
roughing
down
of
the
chisel
is
still
visible
on
it),
in
its
imperfect
and
unfinished
block
it
is
possible
to
recognize
the
perfection
of
the
finished
work
of
art”
(Vasari,
pp.
51‐52).
5.8.
Referring
to
S.
Lorenzo’s
Sacristy
as
well,
Condivi
states:
“It
is
true
that
they
all
lack
a
last
touch,
but
by
the
way
they
are
done
it
is
possible
to
notice
the
artist’s
excellence,
and
those
parts
that
are
only
sketched
do
not
diminish
the
work’s
perfection
and
beauty”
(Condivi,
p.
80).
5.9.
Condivi
writes
about
the
Pietà
of
Santa
Mª
de
Fiore:
“It
would
be
impossible
to
describe
the
beauty
and
the
expressions
shown
in
the
dismayed
faces
of
all
the
characters,
especially
the
disheartened
mother.
That
is
enough.
At
any
rate,
I
do
want
to
point
out
that
this
is
a
unique
and
accomplished
work,
among
the
many
other
ones
that
he
had
done
so
far”
(Condivi,
p.
92).
5.10.
“Whatever
his
actual
motive
was,
we
must
point
out
that
Michelangelo
only
finished
a
few
statues
in
his
old
age”
(Vasari,
p.
88).
We
must
stress
how
valuable
this
statement
is,
coming
from
Vasari,
because
it
entrails
the
reckoning
of
a
number
of
Michelangelo’s
goals,
purposes
and
achievements
that
went
beyond
the
understanding
of
his
contemporaries.
They
went
even
beyond
what
he
could
entrust
to
his
own
biographers
to
liberate
himself
from
the
many
pressures
that
would
have
prevented
him
from
advancing
toward
the
unconceivable
contributions
that
would
arise
from
his
works.
5.11.
The
reasons
sustained
by
his
contemporary
biographers,
Vasari
and
Condivi,
in
order
to
justify
the
great
number
of
“unfinished”
sculptures
are
the
arguments
about
27
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Michelangelo
being
always
too
busy,
about
his
commitments
and
obligations,
his
ambitious
projects
demanding
all
of
his
energy
during
decades
on
uninterrupted
dedication.
The
quotation
marks
underscore
the
relative
and
disputable
character
of
a
term
we
cannot
feel
satisfied
with,
once
we
observe
the
works
in
question.
If
we
go
over
Michelangelo’s
biographies,
we
can
notice—despite
the
avidity
in
both
cases,
but
even
more
so
in
Condivi’s,
to
excuse
him
and
praise
him—that
the
diversity
of
commitments
and
the
geographical
distance
that
often
separated
them,
going
back
and
forth
from
Florence
to
Rome,
would
cause
Michelangelo
multiple
interruptions.
Regarding
this
fact,
it
is
crucial
to
observe
the
development
of
strategies
to
benefit
from
the
situation
and
make
it
a
sort
of
blessing
in
disguise.
This
ability
to
benefit
from
the
obstacles
one
encounters
has
been
all
throughout
history
the
basic
principle
at
the
origin
of
all
innovations,
not
only
in
the
field
of
arts,
but
also
in
any
aspect
of
life
in
which
it
is
necessary
to
find
“creative
solutions”
to
those
crossroads
that
seem
not
to
have
a
way
out.
5.12.
Michelangelo’s
main
strategy—any
advance
in
the
carving
of
the
stone
is
always
done
with
an
eye
on
the
whole,
so
that
in
every
stage
there
is
the
kind
of
harmony
and
meaning
of
an
accomplished
work
of
art.
This
methodology
demands
an
extra
effort
since,
along
the
process,
each
work
must
be
multiple
works—entities
that
transform
themselves
to
give
room
for
another
one.
How
far
can
this
go?
Is
the
availability
of
time
always
the
decisive
element?
We
have
seen
that
it
was
not
so,
since
his
working
method
also
included
the
acquired
devices,
the
findings
that
appeared
as
the
temporary
trace
was
transformed
in
a
definitive
one,
as
seen
in
the
pieces
we
have
already
analyzed,
in
which
the
progression
toward
the
conventional
finish,
did
not
make
any
sense.
Even
more
so,
Michelangelo
had
denied
himself
that
possibility,
he
had
rejected
it
since
the
time
he
realized
that
sketches
are
only
a
point
of
departure
to
a
journey
whose
ending
he
couldn’t
know,
because
it
is
part
of
a
plan
in
which
the
main
commitment
is
the
need
to
discover.
We
must
not
insult
common
sense
by
thinking
that
the
person
who
finished
the
Pietà
in
St.
Peter
when
he
was
just
24
years
old,
would
later
make
such
miscalculation
in
his
last
Piety,
or
in
his
previous
pieces.
Something
different
happened
with
his
so‐called
“regrets,”
which
in
Michelangelo’s
case
28
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
should
not
be
understood
only
as
the
result
of
dissatisfactions
but
also
as
a
consequence
of
some
findings
that
lead
him
deeper
into
the
unknown
and
showed
him
where
to
stop.
5.13.
First
sight
evidences—If
the
vertical
piece
of
marble
at
the
right
of
Awakening,
the
part
that
keeps
the
shape
of
the
cubic
prism,
were
to
be
dismissed
in
the
“finished”
work,
it
would
had
been
cut
off,
very
easely,
before
starting
to
carve
the
body,
since
its
presence
there
makes
working
on
the
part
of
the
body
it
borders
more
difficult.
But
the
crucial
question
should
be—What
is
that
piece
of
marble
good
for?
What
would
his
function
be?
It
is
the
same
question
we
would
ask
in
regard
to
the
mass
of
stone
blending
with
the
head
of
Atlas.
In
order
to
understand
the
Awakening,
we
have
to
take
into
account
that
the
block
itself,
the
cubic
prism
as
such,
as
a
block
of
stone,
is
what
gives
the
meaning
to
the
initial
Platonic
concept
of
emergence
and
origin
that
Michaelangelo
takes
a
little
further.
The
presence
of
the
block
was
sought
in
order
to
imply
both
retention
and
envelopment,
in
order
to
transmit
its
own
teluric
energy
in
the
process
of
creation,
which
in
nature
always
takes
the
form
of
a
struggle,
an
original
struggle
for
power—a
specular
struggle
of
the
one
who
will
later
become
a
presumable
free
human
being.
Like
centuries
later
in
minimalist
art,
the
physical
or
virtual
presence
of
the
cubic
prism
will
reappear
again,
in
contrast
to
the
frame
that
delimits
the
painting,
implying
the
presence
of
a
wholeness
which
is
concentric
and
expansive
at
the
same
time.
5.14.
To
continue
to
use
the
word
“unfinished”
in
reference
to
these
works
entails
the
renunciation
to
any
effort
that
could
lead
beyond
some
specific
aesthetic
limitations—those
aesthetic
limitations
that
Michelangelo
felt
were
too
narrow.
If
we
continue
to
use
the
term
“unfinished”
even
when
we
are
persuaded
of
the
expressive
intentions
of
these
pieces,
this
misunderstanding
will
keep
spreading
even
more.
Quotation
marks—any
kind
of
them—
are
probably
the
most
efficient
tool
to
emphasize
words
and
concepts,
and
lead
to
reflexion.
Rather
than
trying
to
create
a
new
term,
quotation
marks
allow
us
to
stress
the
unknown
in
what
we
believe
we
know.
5.15.
“Sculpture
doesn’t
only
represent
an
image,
but
also
puts
into
practice,
in
its
own
production
process,
this
passage
from
the
material
to
the
spiritual.
The
rough,
unfinished
29
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
parts
connect
the
figure
with
the
natural
space
and
light;
the
polished,
finished
parts
take
part
in
the
trascendental
light
and
space.
That
is
why
Michelangelo
doesn’t
want
assistants—
art
is
an
experience
that
must
be
personally
and
painfully
experienced.
The
sculptor
does
not
use
the
stone
to
bring
out
an
image
that
would
express
a
concept.
Through
the
image,
but
mainly
through
his
own
work,
he
liberates
the
block
from
his
material
inertia,
and
by
doing
so
he
carries
out
an
exercise,
an
ascetic
experience
in
which
he
symbolically
liberates
himself”
(Argan,
p.
64).
And
a
little
bit
ahead,
referring
to
the
Medicis’
Sacristy,
Argan
writes,
“but
some
parts
of
the
figures
are
rough
(for
exemple,
the
face
of
Day),
because
the
substance
is
ambiguous—on
the
one
hand,
it
controls
mortals’
destiny,
and
on
the
other,
eternity
itself.
That
is
why
the
unfinished
sometimes
invades,
partially,
the
shapes,
which
in
other
sections
appear
as
polished
as
mirrors.
It
is
like
an
earthly
crust
from
which
the
figures
have
not
yet
completely
freed
themselves”
(p.
67).
6.
Regarding
the
“off‐scene.”
For
Michelangelo,
poetry
is
a
complementary
tool.
Through
it,
he
offers
us
important
clues
to
understand
not
only
his
moods
but
also
his
ideas,
which
will
determine
the
way
to
confront
the
creation
of
his
works.
A
good
example
of
this
is
the
following
sonnet,
in
which
Michelangelo
cries
out
against
the
Church,
against
the
powers
that
fund
his
work,
against
the
pope
himself,
whom
he
compares
to
Medusa,
the
most
dangerous
of
the
gorgons.
6.1. The snakes around the body of Laocoön—that Michelangelo adopts for his
Awakening—are too big and powerful now to be included in his work. In order to solve
the problem of representation, Michelangelo chooses to resort to the off-scene. In this
way, we can imagine the immense snakes, although they are not directly represented. It is
the attitude of what, in effect, is represented, what leads us to them. His work connects us
with what was left outside of it, not visible but present—starting this way the era of the
virtual image.
6.2.
Michelangelo
(Come
procedimento
connesso
a
una
nuova
concezione
dell’arte,
segnò
una
svolta
radicale:
chiuse
il
ciclo
dell’arte
classica,
di
rappresentazione,
e
aprì
quello
dell’arte
moderna,
come
espressione
di
stati
dell’esistenza.)
http://www.giuliocarloargan.org/oldsite/novita_2005michelangelo.htm
30
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
6.3.
In
regard
to
the
“off‐scene,”
this
sonnet
by
Michelangelo
is
specially
meaningful.
Qua
si
fa
elmi
di
calici
e
spade,
e
'l
sangue
di
Cristo
si
vend'
a
giumelle,
e
croce
e
spine
son
lance
e
rotelle;
e
pur
da
Cristo
pazienza
cade!
Ma
non
c'arivi
più
'n
queste
contrade,
chè
n'andré
'l
sangue
suo
'nsin
alle
stelle,
poscia
che
a
Roma
gli
vendon
la
pelle;
e
èci
d'ogni
ben
chiuso
le
strade.
S'
i'
ebbi
ma'
voglia
a
posseder
tesauro,
per
ciò
che
qua
opera
da
me
è
partita,
può
quel
nel
manto
che
Medusa
in
Mauro.
Ma
se
alto
in
cielo
è
povertà
gradita,
qual
fia
di
nostro
stato
il
gran
restauro,
s'un
altro
segno
ammorza
l'altra
vita?
*
Here
helms
and
swords
are
made
of
chalices:
The
blood
of
Christ
is
sold
so
much
the
quart:
His
cross
and
thorns
are
spears
and
shields;
and
short
Must
be
the
time
e’er
even
his
patience
cease.
Nay,
let
him
come
no
more
to
raise
the
fees
Of
this
foul
sacrilege
beyond
report!
For
Rome
still
flays
and
sells
him
at
court,
Where
paths
are
closed
to
virtue’s
fair
increase.
Now
were
fit
tiem
for
me
to
scrape
a
treasure!
Seeing
that
work
and
gain
are
gone;
while
he
Who
wears
the
robe,
is
my
Medusa
still.
God
welcomes
poverty
perchance
with
pleasure:
31
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
But
of
that
better
life
what
hope
have
we,
When
the
blessed
banner
leads
to
nought
but
ill?
From
Ednah
D.
Cheney,
1885,
p.
59.
English
translation
of
Sonnet
IV
by
J.
A.
Symonds.
In
Sonnet
IV,
written
in
1512,
Michelagelo
turns
one
more
time,
even
if
somehow
cryptically,
against
the
Pope.
7.
“The
Prado
Museum!
My
God!
I
still
had
pinewoods
in
my
eyes
and
the
open
sea
.
.
.
The
aroma
of
varnish,
of
waxed
wood,
of
a
bunch
of
fresh
resin,
just
cried”
(Alberti,
pp.
12‐14).
8.
While
the
accusation
of
not
finishing
his
works
hounded
Michelangelo,
his
actual
concern
was
not
to
finish
them
in
excess.
What
we
intuit
is
much
more
that
what
we
can
express.
To
define,
to
delimit,
means
to
accept
the
loss
as
long
as
we
can
retain,
at
least,
a
minimum
part
of
what
may
have
been
possible.
Poetry
always
comprises
more
than
a
definition,
since
it
leaves
room
to
the
unwritten,
which
takes
the
form
of
silence.
Michelangelo
learns,
at
the
price
of
his
loneliness,
how
to
stop
before
the
still
unsaid
that
arises
intact
from
the
threatened
darkness.
The
paradox
of
poetry—even
when
it
is
poetry
made
in
stone—is
the
ability
of
the
absent
to
deeply
move
us,
and
to
seem
absent
even
when
it
is
already
within
us.
References:
Regarding
Michelangelo,
it
is
not
part
of
this
essay’s
scope
to
establish
the
exact
dates
of
his
works,
as
neither
of
his
first
biographers
do.
Based
on
their
work,
we
have
included
in
each
case
the
approximate
dates
they
may
have
been
started
and
finished.
In
the
case
of
the
slaves,
this
period
starts
in
1513,
when
the
blocks
were
moved
from
Rome
to
Florence,
and
ends
in
1536,
when
Michelangelo
leaves
Florence
for
good.
In
the
case
of
the
Rodanini
Pietà,
32
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
the
period
ends,
obviously,
with
the
artist’s
death,
since
we
know
he
worked
on
this
piece
up
to
four
or
five
days
before
dying.
Sculpture, Painting, Drawing:
12. Berlinde de Bruyckere. 2010, Into One-Another. Wax, epoxy, iron, wood, glass.
193 x 183 x 86 cm.
13. Berlinde de Bruyckere. 2009, We Are All Flesh. Wax, epoxy, iron, pillow and wood.
10. Camille Claudel. 1885, Study for Avarice and Lust. Bronze. 10.16 cm (height).
Posthumous casting.
1. Francis Bacon. 1954, Figure with Meat. Oil on canvas. 129,9 x 121,9 cm.
5. Francis Bacon. 1954-55, Untitled (Pope). Oil on canvas. 152 x 94 cm.
6. Francis Bacon. 1949, Head VI. Oil on canvas. 93 x 76.5 cm.
7. Francis Bacon. 1952, Study for the Head of a Screaming Pope. Oil on canvas. 50 x
40.5 cm.
8. Francis Bacon. 1953, Study after Vélázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Oil on
canvas. 153 x 181,1 cms.
9. Francis Bacon. 1944, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Oil and
pastel on board. Detail.
14. Jana Sterbak. 1987, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic. Flank steak,
mannequin, salt, thread, color photograph on paper, Dress size: 38.
11. Louise Bourgeois. 1968, Blooming Janus. Bronze. 25.7 x 31.8 x 21.3 cm.
1 y 14. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1513-36, Awakening. Marble. 267 cms.
2. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1530-36, Pietà. Drawing. 411 x 234 mm.
3. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1552-64, Rondanini Pietà. Marble.195 cms.
4. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1550-2, Palestrina Pietà. Marble. 250 cms.
Bibliography:
Alberti, Rafael (1967) A la pintura. Losada, Buenos Aires.
33
Alfonso
Masó
Michelangelo:
Awakening
Yet
Prisoner
Argán, Giulio Carlo (1987) Renacimiento y barroco II, de Miguel Ángel a Tiépolo, Akal,
Madrid.
Condivi, Ascanio (2007) Vida de Miguel Ángel Buonarroti. Akal, Madrid.
Cheney, Ednah D. Selected poems from Michelangelo Buonarroti, with translations from
various sources. Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers, 1885.
Shulz, Juergen (1975) “Michelangelo’s Unfinished Works.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 57 Nº
3.
Steiner, George (1989) Real Presences, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Tolnay, Charles de. (1985) Miguel Ángel escultor, pintor y arquitecto. Alianza Editorial,
Madrid.
Vasari, Giorgio (1998) Vita de Michelangelo Buonarroti fiorentino pittore, scultore et
architetto, 1568. Visor, Madrid.
34