"What is the greatest work of art that you have experienced?"
This is the first of two questions I received from a friend in an email this morning as I was settling into the studio. The first part of the question was easy, the second... is the reason I am writing. I almost feel ashamed for my answer, actually I do. I feel like it should be something more modern, more conceptual, more accepted by present tenets in art.
I stood in front of this particular work for almost an hour, sometimes in tears. I eventually took the risk of touching the foot of a sculpture called Day knowing I might get caught and kicked out of the museum.
I was in Florence Italy in the Spring of 2006. I was feeling numb from sensory overload. I was at the San Lorenzo Basilica and ventured into the Medici chapel. It was in the tombs that I had the most powerful experience I have ever had with art. It was done by the hand of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
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| Night and Day |
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| Dusk and Dawn |
It must have been the tears, it must have been the fact that I lost time. Intimacy.I felt certain that I understood, that somehow I had communed with the soul of Michelangelo through this particular work. I have seen most of his more famous works but none of them had this kind of power or conduit.
Somehow he shared his soul with this young naive artists 500 years after his death.
And I am for any artist who can do this through their work.
