要说我为什么喜欢米开朗基罗，得先从达芬奇说起。没有对比就没有伤害嘛！
但是这种比较伤人伤己。比如我比较梵高和高更，对高更不了解，暴露了自己的无知。
现在比较米开朗基罗和达芬奇，厚米薄达，很显然又会暴露无知。不过分析问题说明观点嘛，就是要“典型化和提炼”，否则模模糊糊。
达芬奇可以说是文艺复兴的代言人，因为他是个多面手：艺术，科学，工程，医学，各方面他都有开创性的工作，把人从中世纪到文艺复兴转变的那种精神表现的淋漓尽致。他的《最后的晚餐》，《蒙娜丽莎》更是韵味深长，让人凝望久思，不愧为文艺复兴的代表作。
但是，我对他没有感觉。为什么呢？
首先他没长性，画的画大都未完成。既然未完成，我就不知道他最后要表现什么，当然也许我灵性不高，知道有些人对未完成作品特有感觉。
但主要的，还是做不到与他有心灵交流。当然可能还是因为我对他了解不够，需要读更多有关他的资料才行。按说，写他的资料很多，无奈我却一直没有兴趣去查询。即使是蒙娜丽莎的神秘微笑，我虽然觉得很美很神秘，但也没觉得与我的情感有多大关联。
更有甚者，我对他最近那幅天价耶稣尤其不喜欢，正如不喜欢他的那幅圣约翰：两幅作品都有一种神秘感。可是我觉得：神秘感能被女性的温暖中和从而变得柔和因此增添一份魅力，但被男性的冷峻加强之后就会变得狡黠因而增添一份魔力。具有魔力的约翰和耶稣实在没有亲和力，他们仿佛恶棍，我竟有一丝恐惧。
（达芬奇的圣约翰）
（达芬奇的耶稣）
（达芬奇的抱貂女人）
（达芬奇的不知名女人肖像）
至于我与他没有心灵交流，也与达芬奇本人有关。最近著名传记作家沃特•伊萨克森写了一本他的传记。伊萨克森是写乔布斯，爱因斯坦传记的那个人，文笔老道，记述详实深入。我还没读。朋友李大卫给财新写了篇介绍，其中引述伊萨克森这样的一句话：“尽管他取得过大范围跨界的成就，却没有米开朗基罗•博纳罗蒂那样的诗才；后人对于他的了解，也基本限于智性方面。”
这句话正是我意，也从反面说出了我为什么喜欢米开朗基罗的原因。米开朗基罗，尽管他的画色彩配的不完美（那时候色彩的来源不容易），也没有像达芬奇那样做很好的透视研究，更没有在科学和工程上有所建树，因此谈不上什么智性，但是他的作品都有着深深的情感，不论是对上帝，还是对命运。我对米开朗基罗的感觉，就如同对古典音乐里的巴赫，他们是大师中的大师，他们的作品像是我们和上帝之间的纽带，虔诚，敬畏，致美，既有神圣，又很世俗。
不是吗？当我凝视米开朗基罗的Pieta，圣母与圣子，我的感觉真的就如听巴赫的Ave Maria，圣母颂。 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyUhEjtlDLA)。
这个作品虽然是宗教题材但很有真实感，像是身边的人，玛丽亚再不是中世纪画里那个面无表情比例失调的人物，而是一个有血有肉，有深深慈母感情的女人。这里的玛丽亚的美，让人窒息（absorbing），以至于有人批评米开朗基罗说这个圣母太年轻了，他很米开朗基罗地回了一句，因为她是圣母。
也不必说，那比例匀称的大卫。你也可以说他太完美了，就是因为他是大卫。
而我经常谈到的是西斯廷内屋顶上的这幅画，上帝与亚当的指尖相碰，那一瞬间，思想产生了。
米开朗琪罗的雕塑方式，据说与别人不一样，别人先弄出一个基本样子然后慢慢雕刻细节；但是米开朗基罗是雕刻到哪里，哪里就是最后完成的样子，就好像那个雕塑已经藏在那块大理石里，他不过把尘埃敲掉，把雕像拿出来就是了。这么说来，那雕塑是上帝的作品还是他的作品就说不清楚了。据说他把艺术都归功于上帝。
这个观点，我在其它一些文章中，比如《再谈量子斯宾诺莎：米开朗基罗，莎士比亚，加缪，和美学》里有更多展开。
而我最受震动的，是米开朗基罗在《最后的审判》里给自己的地位：耶稣十二门徒之一的巴尔多禄茂手提着自己殉道时被扒下的人皮，人皮上画的却是米开朗基罗本人扭曲变形的脸。
这是何等的视死如归，泰然自若。
与达芬奇比起来，米开朗基罗是太有长性了，躺在那画西斯廷屋顶，一画画几年，这个精神实在动人。
更何况米开朗基罗写了很多十四行诗，说明他是个把感情诉诸文字的人，而文字是我的酒精。酒后吐真言，字里露真心。
所以我喜欢米开朗基罗。
附：朗费罗翻译的米开朗基罗十四行诗：
Seven Sonnets and a Canzone by Michelangelo
Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I
The Artist
Nothing the greatest can conceive
That every marble block doth not confine
Within itself: and only its design
The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
The ill I flee, the good that I believe,
In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine,
Thus hidden lie; and so that death be mine,
Art, of desired success, doth me bereave.
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face,
Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain,
Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny,
If in they heart both death and love find place
At the same time, and if my humble brain,
Burning, can nothing draw but death from thee.
II
Fire
Not without fire can any workman mould
The iron to his preconceived design,
Nor can the artist without fire refine
And purify from all its dross the gold;
Nor can revive the phoenix, we are told,
Except by fire. Hence, if such death be mine,
I hope to rise again with the divine,
Whom death augments, and time cannot make old.
O sweet, sweet death! O fortunate fire that burns
Within me still to renovate my days,
Though I am almost numbered with the dead!
If by its nature unto heaven returns
This element, me, kindled in its blaze,
Will it bear upward when my life is fled.
III
Youth and Age
O give me back the days when loose and free
To my blind passion were the curb and rein,
O give me back the angelic face again,
With which all virtue buried seems to be!
O give my panting footsteps back to me,
That are in age so slow and fraught with pain,
And fire and moisture in the heart and brain.
If thou wouldst have be burn and weep for thee!
If it be true thou livest alone, Amor,
On the sweet-bitter tears of human hearts,
In an old man thou canst not wake desire;
Souls that have almost reached the other shore
Of a diviner love should feel the darts,
And be as tinder to a holier fire.
IV
Old Age
The course of my long life hath reached at last,
In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea,
The common harbor, where must rendered be
Account of all the actions of the past.
The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast,
Made art an idol and a king to me,
Was an illusion, and but vanity
Were the desires that lured me and harassed.
The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore,
What are they now, when two deaths may be mine, -
One sure, and one forecasting its alarms?
Painting and sculpture satisfy no more
The soul now turning to the Love Divine,
That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms.
V
To Vittoria Colonna
Lady, how can it chance - yet this we see
In long experience - that will longer last
A living image carved from quarries vast
than its own maker, who dies presently?
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be,
And even Nature is by Art surpassed;
This know I, who to Art have given the past,
But see that Time is breaking faith with me.
Perhaps on both of us long life can I
Either in color or in stone bestow,
By now portraying each in look and mien;
So that a thousand years after we die,
How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe,
And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.
VI
To Vittoria Colonna
When the prime mover of my many sighs
Heaven took through death from out her earthly place,
Nature, that never made so fair a face,
Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes.
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries!
O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace,
Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace
Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies.
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay
The rumor of thy virtuous renown,
That Lethe's waters could not wash away!
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down,
Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey,
Except through death, a refuge and a crown.
VII
Dante
What should be said of him cannot be said;
By too great splendor is his name attended;
To blame is easier those who him offended,
Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead
For our instruction; then to God ascended;
Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,
Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice
Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well
That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
That as his exile hath no parallel,
Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.
VIII
Canzone
Ah me! ah me! when thinking of the years,
The vanished years, alas, I do not find
Among them all one day that was my own!
Fallacious hopes, desires of the unknown,
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in tears,
(For human passions all have stirred my mind,)
Have held me, now I feel and know, confined
Both from the true and good still far away.
I perish day by day;
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.