Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants by Mathias Enard

Author:Mathias Enard [Enard, Mathias]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910695708
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Published: 2018-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

¶ In one of the pendentives in the Sistine Chapel, opposite the panel on which Judith is majestically carrying the head of Holofernes, David is getting ready to decapitate Goliath; his arm, in pure blue pigment, wields a broad scimitar parallel to the ground; a spot of light falls on his shoulder, twisted from the effort.

Of course, Michelangelo is not now thinking of these frescoes, which he will bring into being three years from now, and which will earn him even more measureless glory; right now, he just has a bridge in mind, a bridge whose design he wants to finish as promptly as possible so he can receive his wages and leave this disturbing city, at once familiar and resolutely other, through which he nevertheless doesn’t get tired of strolling and gathering images, faces and colours.

Michelangelo works – that is, he draws in the morning, as soon as the dawn light permits him; then Manuel comes to read to him and he dozes off a little. Towards evening, he walks with Mesihi, whose company he appreciates as much as his beauty. He leaves him before nightfall, when the poet invariably goes to the tavern to get drunk until dawn.

Michelangelo was not very handsome, with a forehead that was too broad, a crooked nose – broken during a brawl in his youth – bushy eyebrows, ears that stuck out a little. He couldn’t stand his own face, it was said. It was often said that if he sought perfection of features, beauty in faces, it’s because he himself lacked them completely. Only old age and fame would give him an unparalleled aura, like a kind of patina on an object that started out ugly. Perhaps it’s in this frustration that we can find the energy of his art; in the violence of the era, in the humiliation of artists, in rebellion against nature, in the lure of money, the inextinguishable thirst for advancement and glory that is the most powerful of motivators.

Michelangelo is searching for love.

Michelangelo is afraid of love just as he’s afraid of Hell.

He looks away when he feels Mesihi’s gaze resting on him.

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