Confined by the Excess

The Vatican Pieta, 1499, Michelangelo, Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

 'The best of artists can no concept find

that is not in a single block of stone,

confined by the excess; to that alone

attains the hand obedient to the mind.

  Noble and gracious lady, most divine,

the evil that I flee and good I crave

thus hide in you; but, that I may not live,

my art proves contrary to my design.

  Not love then, nor your beauty or disdain,

your harshness or fortune or my fate

or destiny is guilty of my pain,

  if in your heart at once you carry both mercy and death, and if my lowly wit,

burning, draws from it nothing else but death.'

~ Michelangelo

Photo from May 2011, David (Reproduction), Michelangelo, Piazza della Signoria, Firenze, Italy

Michelangelo wrote many letters, sonnets, and poems and this one in particular he utilized sculpture as his metaphor and shows the plurality in all things. Michelangelo it is said used art theory to make poetry.

Buonarroti, M. (2007). Poems and letters (michelangelo). Penguin Classics.