Michelangelo: A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the Master, with Introduction and Interpretation

This 1900 volume offers an intimate encounter with the work of the man whom his contemporaries called Il Divino, the divine one. Estelle M. Hurll, writing in the late Victorian tradition of lyrical art criticism, guides readers through fifteen carefully selected pictures and a portrait of Michelangelo, revealing not merely what the master created but how and why it moves us. The analysis emphasizes what distinguished Michelangelo from his peers: his obsessive focus on the human form as the supreme vehicle for emotional and spiritual expression, and his relentless pursuit of action, tension, and drama over static beauty. Hurll illuminates the terribilità, that quality of awe-inspiring power that left viewers breathless, and traces how Michelangelo's sculptures and paintings alike pursue the body in extremity, caught between the physical and the transcendent. Written for an era that still believed art could elevate the soul, this book captures a moment when looking at pictures was understood as a moral and aesthetic discipline. It remains valuable not only for its insights into specific works but as a window into how educated readers once approached the Renaissance giants: with reverence, close attention, and the confidence that masterpieces deserved, and rewarded, patient, thoughtful looking.