An Interesting Story......

A year or so before I moved base to Delhi, I came across a piece of prose by Gulzar, an excellent piece. So, when I came across it again very recently, I felt like sharing it...........

Michelangelo
Translated by Alok Bhalla

Michelangelo had once again been away from Florence for five years. He was beginning to tire of Rome. He couldn't find a place for his painting in Rome. The faces there didn't seem to have any character - they all looked alike. That's what he told Pope Julius II.

"What do you see in my face?" Julius asked.

"A burning candle."

After a moment's pause, Julius smiled. He was used to Michel's caustic comments. "Yes, I understand what you mean. I am like any of those thousand candles which people light on the altar of the cathedral when they are in trouble."

Michel remained silent.

"I am surprised that in this vast creation of God, where no face resembles another, you can't find a face for your painting - can't find a model. During the last four months, the face of Judas ..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Michelangelo had walked out of St. Peter's.

Pope Julius was familiar with Angelo's moods. That was Angelo's fifth year in Rome. For five years, he had been painting scenes from the Old and New Testaments on the dome and the walls of the Sistine Chapel. And now that it was nearing completion, Julius didn't want to spoil his relationship with Angelo. Julius remembered that when Michelangelo had carved an image of Jesus in wood for the Church of the Holy Spirit, his model had been a young man who had suddenly died in the monastery. Because of Angelo, they had had to delay lifting his coffin for twelve hours.

Michelangelo wasn't like Bramante who created figures according to rules. That is why the shape and form of Bramante's characters were always the same ... they seemed to belong to the same family. He had dismissed Bramante and once again made peace with Angelo.

Five years ago, when Michelangelo returned to Rome, he used to lie under the dome St. Peter's for hours and mumble something to himself. Julius began to have doubts about his mental stability. Once, when Julius quietly walked upto him, he heard him reciting verses from the Bible.

"What are you doing?"

"O!" Michelangelo turned to look at the Pope with a start. "I am unveiling the verses from the bible."

Julius understood him. He was looking for faces in the white-washed brick walls. Jesus's face, Mary's face, Judas's face. The shapes of their bodies were visible, but their faces were hidden in the verses of the Bible.

Michelangelo had drawn many sketches of Gabriel's face on paper. Julius had asked, "How did you draw Gabriel's face? He doesn't belong to this world."

"I heard his voice. In the Old Testament."

"Then you must have also heard the voice of God?" Julius had asked jokingly.

"I have heard His silence."

That had convinced Julius that he had chose the right artist. "He's an eccentric," he had told Vatican Committee, "but only he can paint the Sistine Chapel."

Michelangelo had chosen his mother as the model for Mary. He had done so on the day he had seen her carry two drums of water hung on a Bamboo across her shoulder. Only a woman like her could have carried the weight of the son of God in her womb.

His mother had lit a fire and was heating water for his father's bath. He had closely watched her face glowing in the light of the fire - radiant, warm, brilliant like gold, and made lots of sketches of her face on paper.

That night, as she sat near the stove, he had asked her, "Why didn't you give birth to Jesus?"

"Because I met your father. Look at him lying there inebriated. Go and look after him."

Angelo had immediately made a sketch of his stupefied father on a piece of cardboard and had hung it up next to him, so that his father could see what he looked like when he was drunk. Beneath it he had written, "Father, if you hadn't been like this, Mother could have been Mary."

His mother had liked the sketch very much, she had always kept it with her. "Why don't you carve an image of your father like this. He looks so innocent."

He had always evaded her by saying, "I can't find that piece of marble in which I can see father's face."

That had happened a long time ago. They used to live in Bologna in those days, the pub at the corner of the lane was her favourite haunt. It was also his father's favourite haunt. His father used to drink inside, while he used to take his bottle and sit outside. He used to frequently buy peanuts from a vendor who used to sit across from him. Everytime the vendor weighted peanuts, a few always rolled out of his basket and fell on the ground. Each time a small naked boy standing nearby would pick them up, put one nut in his mouth and the rest back in the basket, and then wait for the next customer. Michelangelo used to buy peanuts just to watch that performance. When he made the statue of the Madonna of Brujis, he used the boy as the model for the naked baby Jesus.

Soon after, the Pope first asked Michelangelo to paint scenes from the Ola and New Testaments on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had gone to Rome to meet the Pope because every painter and sculptor in Italy was ready to sacrifice his body and soul to be awarded the commission. It would be enough to win him immortality. But for Michelangelo the mere promise if immortality wasn't enough, he had laid down some conditions for his mortal life here. He needed money to buy marble. Pope Julius had promised him some but had later refused to pay him.

"Why do you love stone so much? Why don't you love colours?"

Colours lose their distinctiveness when used with other colours. They change. Marble doesn't change."

Now he was as tired of colours as he was of Rome.

He only had one panel of the Chapel left to paint - The Last Supper, but he drew a blank whenever he tried to imagine one face - the face of Judas he thirteenth disciple of Jesus, who had betrayed his saviour to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver. He had helped to crucify him.

Julius grew more and more impatient.

Michelangelo spent days and days making sketches. He searched through his old drawings and worked on them, but no face satisfied him.

And then suddenly, one day he found Judas in a small, dirty pub in Rome. His eyes had unnatural glitter, he was restless and he spat again and again. His body had already begun to sag with age. He spoke so fast that words seemed to fall out of his mouth like coins from a torn pocket. He had gone to Michelangelo to beg for a dinar, but had ended up sharing a bottle with him. When Michelangelo came out of the pub, he saw the man ask someone else for two dinars.

Michelangelo made a deal with the man and took him to the chapel. He told him what he wanted. He wanted him to model for Judas. That would make the man immortal. Michelangelo lifted up the drapes to show him the walls and the ceiling. The man looked at everything with awe. He asked for a large sum of money in exchange for his consent. Angelo agreed to pay him. Then the man asked for an advance which Michelangelo gave. The man came regularly for a few days. Angelo used to call him to the Chapel for sittings. One day, as the man was looking through some old sketches, he asked Michelangelo about the sketches of the child he had made in Bologna.

"I used to live in Bologna years ago. I used this face to paint Jesus as a child."

"Do you remember his name?"

"Yes ... Marsoleni."

That man smiled. He rolled up his sleeve and showed him a name tattooed on his arm: Marsoleni.

"I am the same Jesus, whom you are now painting as Judas."

I don't how much of the above story is fact, and how much is fiction. But it seems to touch me in some undefinable way..... Do share your reactions on the same with me.....