Michelangelo Sculpture Quotes & Sayings

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material. — Michelangelo Buonarroti

I like the little chess match of how people move through space. I'm not comparing myself to Michelangelo with this analogy, but he said when he sculpts it's like finding the sculpture within. It feels that way when you are with actors, too. There's a natural way to do this with a natural language that flows and feels like real people talking. And you've just got to find it. So I enjoy that part of the process. — Timothy Miller

Sin-cere. Since the days of Michelangelo, sculptors had been hiding the flaws in their work by smearing hot wax into the cracks and then dabbing the wax with stone dust. The method was considered cheating, and therefore, any sculpture "without wax" - literally sine cera - was considered a "sincere" piece of art. The phrase stuck. To this day we still sign our letters "sincerely" as a promise that we have written "without wax" and that our words are true. — Dan Brown

Painting and sculpture, labour and good faith, have been my ruin and I continually go from bad to worse. Better it would have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth. I should not be in such distress of mind. — Michelangelo

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

Michelangelo wasn't the artist who began the sculpture - in fact, he hadn't even been born when it was commissioned. The nineteen-foot block of marble had originally been the project of an artist named Agostino di Duccio, but after shaping some of the legs, feet, and torso, he inexplicably abandoned the work. Ten years later, an artist named Antonio Rossellino was hired to complete it, but his contract was subsequently cancelled. It was nearly twenty-five years before Michelangelo, just twenty-six, picked up a chisel and dared to believe he could complete a masterpiece. — Lysa TerKeurst

A good sculpture can be rolled downhill without breaking. — Michelangelo

If we now seek the spiritual significance of the technique of Michelangelo we shall find that his sculpture expressed restless energy ... — Auguste Rodin

Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture. — Michelangelo

Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman's sink and a brilliant sculpture. — Rob Kall

I always want to do music that inspires or influences another generation. You want what you create to live, be it sculpture or painting or music. Like Michelangelo, he said, I know the creator will go, but his work survives. That is why to escape death, I attempt to bind my soul to my work. — Michael Jackson

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo's sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey's angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington. — John C. Maxwell

I'd be looking at some stony sculpture Michelangelo would have killed his grandmother to be able to do, and thinking, I don't know that color, that color doesn't exist, but like wow. — Robin McKinley

The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it. — Michelangelo Buonarroti

It's a stage with four lights clamped to it with walls made out of plywood. And then my name's in the center. It's the type of thing that can be made over and over again. It's not like a Michelangelo sculpture. — Josh Smith

A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking. — Michelangelo

Sculpture is made by taking away, while painting is made by adding. — Michelangelo

The story is told of Michelangelo being asked about his methods for sculpting.
He replied simply that he worked on a block of marble, removing all that was not
part of the sculpture until only the sculpture remained. I suspect this oversimplifies
the art of sculpture, but it's an excellent analogy for photography, which is
essentially an art of exclusion. — David DuChemin

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. — Michelangelo

He was like warm marble wherever she touched him, solid and unyielding, Michelangelo's namesake sculpture come to life. — Tina Wright

With Michelangelo anatomical science is transformed into music. With him the human body is architectonic matter for the construction of dreams. — Umberto Boccioni