Michelangelo: Works Of Genius

 Nearly a year ago, I moved into my current apartment.  It took me a few weeks to figure out how to organize and arrange my new space.  One part of the process was fairly simple:  I bought three Delta bike storage racks, enough for my six Mercians.  Two of those racks are the "Michelangelo" model and, if they aren't works of genius, they certainly are very practical and attractive.

It makes sense that such an item would be named for the man who gave us "David."  Interestingly, he all but denied that he was a painter:  He considered himself a sculptor and sculpture to be a superior art form.  In fact, he so disdained painting (including his own) that he wrote this about his "Creation of Adam" in the Sistene Chapel:

Michelangelo: To Giovanni da Pistoia
"When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel"

I've already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison).
My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's
pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!

My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's
all knotted from folding over itself.
I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.

Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts
are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.

My painting is dead.
Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

(Translated by Gail Mazur)

So why am I talking about him today?  Well, in addition to having a bike rack named after him, he's one of my artistic heroes.  Oh, and it just happens that he was born 550 years ago today.  Some people and things really do get better with age.