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Experiments in Perception

Michelangelo on which is more noble: Painting or Sculpture

Extract from letter by Michelangelo, to Messer Benedetto (consul of the Florentine Academy), 1549

I say that painting is to be considered the better, the more it approaches relief, and relief is to be considered the worse, the more it approaches painting.

And so I used to be of the opinion that sculpture is the lamp of painting, and between them there is the same difference that there is between the sun and the moon.

Now that I have read your essay, in which you say that, philosophically speaking, those things which have an identical goal are one and the same thing, I have changed my mind. And so I say that if greater judgement and difficulty, impediment and labour, do not constitute higher nobility, then painting and sculpture are essentially the same.

And in order that this be upheld, every painter should think no less of painting than of sculpture.

By sculpture I understand that art which operates by taking away. That art which operates by laying on is similar to painting.

Suffice it to say that, since both emanate from one and the same intelligence, sculpture and painting can be made to live in harmony together, and give up so many lengthy arguments, for these arguments take up more time than the actual practice of both arts.