Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/271

Rh knowledge and improvement which he constantly perceived himself to make, encouraged him to such a degree that he grudged no labour, and was insensible to all fatigue. The division of the work in the Chapel is after this manmer: There are five corbels on each side thereof, and one on the wall at each end. On these are figures of the Prophets and Sybils; and in the centre of the ceiling is the History of the World from the Creation to the Deluge, with the Inebriation of Noah. On the lunettes are the Genealogy of Christ. In these compartments Michelagnolo has used no perspective foreshortenings, nor has he determined any fixed point of sight; but has rather accommodated the division to the figures, than the figures to the division; he has been satisfied with imparting the perfection of design to all his forms whether nude or draped, and this he has done effectually, insomuch that a finer work never has been, and never can be executed; nor will it be without diflS.culty that its excellence shall be imitated. Of a truth, this Chapel, as thus painted by his hand, has been and is the very light of our art, and has done so much for the progress thereof, that it has sufiiced to illumine the world, which had lain in darkness for so many hundreds of years. Nay, no man who is a painter now cares to seek new inventions, attitudes, draperies, originality, and force of expression, or variety in the modes of representation, seeing that all the perfection which can be given to each of these requisites in a work of this character by the highest powers of art are presented to him here, and have been imparted to this work by Michelagnolo. Every beholder who can judge of such things, now stands amazed at the excellence of the figures, the perfection of the foreshortenings, the astonishing roundness of the outlines, and the grace and flexibility, with the beautiful truth of proportion, which are seen in the exquisite nude forms here exhibited; and the better to display the resources of his art, Michelagnolo has given them of every age, with varieties of expression and form as well as of countenance and feature; some are more slender, others fuller; the beautiful attitudes also differ in all, some are seated, others are in motion, while others again are supporting festoons of oak-leaves and acorns, adopted as the impress and device of Pope Julius,