On the other hand--with the exception of two of his early
Madonnas and, perhaps, Eve--he has not given us one glorified female
figure; all his women are characterised by something careworn and
unlovely; some of his old women--most strikingly the Cumaic Sybil--are
depicted with absolutely masculine features, masculine figures and
gigantic musculature. His ideal was the Hellenic ideal, was a human form
neither man nor woman; all extremes, but also all peculiarities and
everything personal, were, if not completely suppressed, at any rate
pushed into the background. We regard this ideal, which is alien to our
inherent nature, with a feeling akin to contempt, for the modern ideal
is male and female, but it nevertheless was of great moment in the
obliteration of sex and the accentuation of the purely human. The
Platonic (and also Michelangelo's) love of young men was in its essence
pure love of humanity, love of the perfect human body and the perfect
human soul, whose greatest harmony was achieved in the adolescent.
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