PLATE--DANIEL

This wonderful painting is a part of the decoration of the Sistine
Chapel in Rome. The picture of the prophet tells so much in itself,
that a description seems absurd. It is enough to call attention to the
powerful muscles in the arm, the fall of the hand, and then to speak
of the main characteristics of the artist's pictures.

It is extraordinary that there is no blade of grass to be found in any
painting by Michael Angelo. He loved to paint but one thing, and that
was the naked man, the powerful muscles, or the twisted limbs of those
in great agony. He loved only to work upon vast spaces of ceiling or
wall. Look at this picture of Daniel and see how like sculpture the
pose and modelling appear to be. First of all, Michael Angelo was a
sculptor, and most of the painting which fate forced him to do has the
characteristics of sculpture.

One critic has remarked that he loves to think of this strange man
sitting before the marble quarry of Pietra Santa and thinking upon all
the beings hidden in the cliff--beings which he should fashion from
the marble.

It was said that in Michael Angelo's hands the Holy Family became a
race of Titans, and where others would have put plants or foliage,
Angelo placed men and naked limbs to fill the space. When his subject
made some sort of herbage necessary, he invented a kind of mediaeval
fern in place of grass and familiar leaves. Everything appears brazen
and hard and mighty, suggestive of Angelo's own throbbing spirit and
maddened soul. Most of his work, when illustrated, must be shown not