Michelangelo on Effort and Rapidity in Art

Michelangelo once declared to his good friend Bartolommeo Ammannati with that blunt wording which characterizes his Bernesque verse, “Nelle opere mie caco sangue!” (“In my works I stool blood!”). ¹ On the painting of a Deposizione which the artist did for Vittoria Colonna he inscribed the Dantean verse, “Non vi si pensa quanto sangue costa” (“They think not how much blood it costs”), ² which applies to the efforts demanded by this pathetic and grandiose subject, even while evocative of Michelangelo’s schismatic belief in justification through faith in the blood of Christ. ³