Even with seated figures he followed the same principle. Moses and the
Duke Giuliano are ready to rise to their feet if need be. In his
frescoes we again find the same motif,--Adam rising to his feet in
obedience to the Creator's summons, and Christ the Judge sweeping
asunder the multitudes.

In his love of action and his passion for the human form lay the
elements of his art most easily lending themselves to exaggeration.
That the master did indeed permit himself to be carried beyond due
limits in these matters is seen by comparing the grandeur of the
Sistine ceiling with the mannerisms of the Last Judgment. The interval
between was "the time of his best technical and spiritual
creativeness," when he produced the statues of the Sacristy of S.
Lorenzo.

It was characteristic of Michelangelo's impetuous nature to spend his
enthusiasm upon the early stages of his work, and leave it unfinished.
This unfinished effect of many of his marbles seems to bring us in
closer touch with his methods as a sculptor. Nor is a rough surface
here and there inharmonious with the rugged character of his
conceptions. Moreover, as a critic[1] has pointed out, the polished
and rough portions enhance each other, giving a variety in the light
and shadow which is pictorial in effect.

[Footnote 1: See notes on the Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti in the
Blashfield-Hopkins edition of Vasari.]

To a man of Michelangelo's austere temperament, intensely masculine in
his predilections, the beauty of womanhood was not fully revealed. His
sibyls can scarcely be counted as women; they belong to a world of