Michelangelo: The Genius Who Wanted to Be Alone (and therefore remained forever)

If Michelangelo Buonarroti were alive today, he would probably despise social media, refuse interviews, argue endlessly with patrons by email, and create his greatest work at three o’clock in the morning — completely alone.
And yet, he would still be the same man he was five hundred years ago: difficult, stubborn, vulnerable, and undeniably brilliant.

A child raised among stone

Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese. His father dreamed of a respectable bureaucratic career for his son and considered art a dubious occupation — almost a disgrace. Fate, however, had other plans.

As a child, Michelangelo was raised in the household of a stonecutter. Later in life, he would joke — or perhaps speak quite seriously — that his love for stone came with his nurse’s milk. Stone was never just material to him; it was a living presence, already containing form, waiting to be released.

He almost hated painting

One of history’s great ironies is this: the man who gave the world the Sistine Chapel ceiling considered himself, above all else, a sculptor. He deeply disliked painting. When Pope Julius II ordered him to paint the ceiling, Michelangelo was convinced it was a plot by his rivals to humiliate him.

He resisted. He complained. He wrote letters describing physical suffering, exhaustion, and despair. He insisted he was not a painter but a martyr.

And yet he worked.

For four years.
Lying on his back.
Paint dripping into his eyes.
With almost no assistants — because he trusted no one.

The result, of course, is known to everyone.

Anatomy as a form of prayer

Michelangelo was obsessed with the human body. He dissected corpses — a dangerous and forbidden practice at the time — to understand muscles, tendons, and bones. For him, the body was not decorative beauty; it was proof of intention, of design.

His figures are tense, as if alive. Even at rest, they seem ready to move.
David is not a victor, but the moment before action.
Moses is not a prophet, but a man holding back rage.

This is not beauty meant to please.
It is inner tension turned into form.

A very difficult man

Michelangelo was:
– suspicious
– quick-tempered
– solitary
– famously unkempt (he could wear the same boots for weeks)

He had few close friends, trusted almost no one, and constantly quarrelled with patrons — especially popes.

And yet, he was extraordinarily sensitive. His letters are filled with loneliness, doubt, and inner struggle. He wrote poetry — dark, intense, unsettling poems — never intended for publication. They were written for himself alone.

An insider detail: he destroyed his own work

Michelangelo often destroyed his own sculptures if he felt they were imperfect. He feared the world would see what he considered “unfinished.” In old age, he even ordered many of his drawings burned, so no one would understand how much effort lay behind perfection.

He did not want to be seen in the process.
Only in the result.

A love he could not name

One of the most subtle and mysterious aspects of his life was his deep emotional attachment to the young Roman nobleman Tommaso dei Cavalieri. Michelangelo wrote him poems — passionate, tender, almost prayer-like.

They contain no explicit confessions, yet they reveal extraordinary emotional openness. For the sixteenth century, such vulnerability was dangerously bold.

Old age and the fear of the end

In his later years, Michelangelo became even more withdrawn. His art grew harsher, almost ascetic. He thought increasingly about death, faith, and meaning.

His final work, the Rondanini Pietà, remained unfinished — the figures dissolving into stone, as if returning to where they came from.

This was not failure.
It was acceptance.

Why Michelangelo is still with us

Because he was never a “comfortable genius.”
He was a man who doubted constantly, struggled endlessly, questioned his right to perfection — and continued nonetheless.

He reminds us that true art is born not from harmony, but from inner tension.
And that solitude is sometimes not a flaw, but the price of depth.

Michelangelo does not teach us how to be happy.
He teaches us how to be honest with ourselves.

And perhaps that is why he remains alive.