Drawing Michelangelos David

Michelangelo said the artist reveals forms already there in the stone. Like the perfect form in Platonism. But what’s astonishing is that this came from his own mind — he continued reaching into something infinite and inexhaustible hidden in the depths of his life. There’s no full stop and no perfect form in this process, it’s an unceasing striving towards perfection. This is more Aristotelean. There is no perfect static form, and looking deeply at David, the work actually appears to still be moving, still working somehow and creating itself. A perfect form makes me think of one of those robot stone carving machines. It’s just over when it’s finished, because the program says so having worked it all out in advance. There’s no will to strive further into the depths of our potential. If we haven’t found the very base of universal truth then we haven’t arrived, so I guess the work is never finished. I used to think that time or money dictated the parameters of the work, and I have sold myself short for so long.