No one ever before gave such tragic beauty to the worn and tired figure of
a woman who has lived through her many days of toil and suffered many
labours. It is believed by a medical authority that the master meant the
statue to represent rest after a labour, but it is rather the
nightmare-troubled sleep of a tired woman, whose beautiful firm hips and
worn breasts prove her to have bravely met and passed through many cares,
and suckled many children. A horrid mask, symbolising these memories, in
bad dreams, grimaces beside her left hand. The eyes of the mask are cut
double so that the thing alters its glance as you move about the chapel,
fascinates and is intolerable. The noble and splendid thighs of the woman
again realise a favourite problem of Michael Angelo's. He represented
these powerful limbs in the Flood and other parts of the Sistine vault,
and in the Leda. Beneath is seen an owl; never before in sculpture has a
bird been represented with such power and dignity, save only by the Greeks
in the eaglets head on the coin of Eiis. There are wreaths of poppy heads,
symbols of sleep, and a moon and stars to crown the head that is like the
head of a greater than Diana.
Evening, a brawny, hard-worked man, looks across the chapel with pity
towards the Night. He appears to be in the act of straightening and
stretching out his limbs, lately bent by the toils of the day, in
longed-for rest.
[Image #42]
THE MADONNA AND CHILD
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)
The virgin Dawn lifts her weary head, as it were, in despair, that another
day of shame and reproach is beginning; her long, lithe limbs and narrow
hips contrast with the ample girth and muscular power of the Night.
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