There are two unfinished Michelangelo paintings in the National Gallery in London. He has unfinished sculptures on display in Florence too, right near his famous one of David (he calls them ‘the prisoners’ because they’re still ‘imprisoned’ in rock, I think.) And I remember Hannah telling me years ago that what she remembers from the audio tour of the Sistine Chapel was that Pope Julius II had to repeatedly nag Michelangelo to finish painting it. What’s up buddy? Buckle down and gift er done, Michelangelo.
What if he didn’t actually finish anything though? Lots of artists had apprentices or workshops where younger people toiled to learn their craft, so what if when doing the Sistene ceiling, Michelangelo was distracted by a new paint colour and just really wanted to focus on clouds for awhile in a corner, and had some novice rando come up with the main Adam and God finger touching bit that’s in the middle? What if he was like “Look, paint what you want, I don’t care, as long as at least one of em is naked. You know. Make it nice.” (Because Michelangelo is Italian, he talks like he’s in The Godfather in my imagination. Maybe he even said ‘budda bing bada boom’ — what do I know). And what if that uncredited guy had to just sit back and say nothing while people made Michelangelo fridge magnets of his creation until the end of time and he got zero credit for it?
Or maybe Michelangelo had helpers sculpting the boring bits of David? Like you’re a new sculptor and it’s your first big chance with the chisel and on your first day Michelangelo just said “Ok, you’re on pubes and toenails this month. Don’t screw up.”
What if these helper artists didn’t have poetic sounding Italian names either but were just called Hank or something....? I mean no one names a teenage mutant ninja turtle Hank. I guess some people are just destined for greatness.
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