. Were we to place it in a horizontal position on
the ground, that portion of a rounded form which has been disengaged
from the block would emerge just in the same way as a model from a
bath of water not quite deep enough to cover it. At the same time we
learn to appreciate the observations of Vigenere while we study the
titanic chisel-marks, grooved deeply in the body of the stone, and
carried to the length of three or four inches. The direction of these
strokes proves that Michelangelo worked equally with both hands, and
the way in which they are hatched and crossed upon the marble reminds
one of the pen-drawing of a bold draughtsman. The mere
surface-handling of the stone has remarkable affinity in linear effect
to a pair of the master's pen-designs for a naked man, now in the
Louvre. On paper he seems to hew with the pen, on marble to sketch
with the chisel. The saint appears literally to be growing out of his
stone prison, as though he were alive and enclosed there waiting to be
liberated. This recalls Michelangelo's fixed opinion regarding
sculpture, which he defined as the art "that works by force of taking
away." In his writings we often find the idea expressed that a statue,
instead of being a human thought invested with external reality by
stone, is more truly to be regarded as something which the sculptor
seeks and finds inside his marble--a kind of marvellous discovery.
Thus he says in one of his poems: "Lady, in hard and craggy stone the
mere removal of the surface gives being to a figure, which ever grows
the more the stone is hewn away." And again--

_The best of artists hath no thought to show
Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
Doth not include: to break the marble spell
Is all the hand that serves the brain can do._

S. Matthew seems to palpitate with life while we scrutinise the
amorphous block; and yet there is little there more tangible than some
such form as fancy loves to image in the clouds.

To conclude what I have said in this section about Michelangelo's
method of working on the marble, I must confirm what I have stated
about his using both left and right hand while chiselling. Raffaello
da Montelupo, who was well acquainted with him personally, informs us
of the fact: "Here I may mention that I am in the habit of drawing
with my left hand, and that once, at Rome, while I was sketching the
Arch of Trajan from the Colosseum, Michelangelo and Sebastiano del
Piombo, both of