Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as a...n illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime--and a cruelty, too. If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In Italy, for thirty years, under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leo...nardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Annie Hall: Well, la-de-da! Alvy Singer: La-de-da. If I, if anyone had ever told me that I would be taking out a girl who use...d expressions like "la-de-da."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The contrast between Leonardo and Michelangelo is an allegory of the arts of modern times. Leonardo left copious notes of his obse...rvations on nature and the world around him, but little about his feelings or his inner life. Michelangelo, in his letters, his poetry, in biographies by his friends and students Vasari and Condivi, in conversations with Francisco de Hollanda and others, left us vivid revelations and eloquent chronicles of himself. Leonardo, the self-styled "disciple of experience," was a hero of the effort to re-create the world from the shapes and forms and sensations out there. But Michelangelo, prophet of the sovereign self, found mysterious resources within. These two greatest figures of Italian Renaissance art dramatized a modern movement from craftsman to artist. If Leonardo could be called the Aristotle--practical-minded organizer and surveyor of experience--Michelangelo would be the Plato, seeker after the perfect idea.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremb...le. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolvi...ng forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them--whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »