The Agony & The Ecstasy of Stone’s Michelangelo

Biographical novels of artists abound, but perhaps the most famous is Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy about one of the most famous artists of all time, Michelangelo.   Stone took much of his material from nearly 500 letters attributed to Michelangelo, which had never before been translated.  The book follows most of Michelangelo’s life, detailing the ease with which he created, and the difficulties he encountered in his pursuit of creation.   Throughout the novel, art and its creation are seen by and through Michelangelo as divine, the ultimate expression of devotion to God.  Yet the forces of destruction—bigotry, religious fanaticism, ignorance, poverty, war, and death—continually intercede and test his devotion. He must deal with the whims of patrons, the demands of his family, and the ignorance of his critics, yet still prevail with his acts of creation.

The_Agony_and_the_EcstasyThe novel is structured so that each “book” centers on one of Michelangelo’s masterpieces, including his David, Pieta, Moses, the paintings of the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s dome. Each is also paired with an antagonist in the form of a patron, a Pope, a war, his family, or terrible poverty trying to stand in the way of the artist’s genius.

At the end of his life, however, he says, “Il Magnifico would be happy: for me, the forces of destruction never overcame creativity.”   Michelangelo’s art is also strongly representative of his personal integrity throughout the novel.  As his David stands as a symbol of freedom to Florence, so it also represents Michelangelo’s freedom from convention and willingness to stand alone. When he is given the chance to rush through the Sistine Chapel—a commission he hates, longing to return to marble—he cannot bring himself to do mediocre work and still call himself an artist.

330px-Cappella_tornabuoni,_16,_battesimo_di_CristoHis art is also representative of his disdain for convention in the novel. Most of his subjects are religious, but he avoids convention at all cost in his art and in his religious beliefs.  He is threatened for his views, yet also admired and adored for pouring divine spark into his art. Each time he must work through his own interpretation of a religious figure or event, he deepens his own personal faith and belief. His critics see this as arrogant, yet the book clearly suggests that the beliefs, the Popes, the Inquisition, and all the critics of the time faded. Michelangelo’s art never has.