It’s tempting to just release your artistic forces and throw caution to the wind; certainly it’s quicker… but then there is good reason to regularly revisit your original maquette design.

Michelangelo certainly invested much time into his smaller scale models, and from these he could ensure the grace and majesty he imagined would continue to transfer to his marble…

The model is key to ensuring your chisel stays on course.  Angles and expressions, curves and subtleties are often realized in the clay maquette, but lost in translation to stone.   You have devoted so much thought to your message….  The strength of sorrow,  the passion found in purpose, the embrace of life and death,  all represented within the pyramidal yin-yang.   This ideal is now trapped in the stone and is relying on you to release it from its bonds.

Michelangelo believed the artist ultimate purpose was to reveal the ideal human form that was trapped within the marble…  the stone did not inspire the vision, but was chosen because it conformed to his vision.  This is a significant difference from the renaissance style of sculpting to both modern and traditional art techniques. Continue reading →