 Michelangelo is never discovered from his genius. I mean, he is sometimes forced to do what he doesn't want to do, often forced to do what he doesn't want to do. And we can talk about that with Michelangelo. One of the great tragedies of history is what happens, in a sense, to Michelangelo. Because in my view, he's the greatest sculptor of all of history. And yet he doesn't sculpt much because he's forced to paint because that's what the pope wants him to do. But when he's identified as a great sculptor, people come to him. You know, here's the story about Michelangelo. Michelangelo is just this amazing kid. He's identified as a sculptor early on. He's brought into the Medici household, in a sense, he sculpts in this garden school outside of the Medici place. And he has admired for his sculpture. And at the age of 20, he goes to Rome. And he gets his first commission. And his first commission is the sculpt of Bacchus. Bacchus, Bacchus, something like that, the god of wine. And the god of wine is, of course, a Roman god, a Greek god. And often, the god of wine in sculpture before Michelangelo is always portrayed as the strong raising a glass of wine, kind of very powerful, positive, almost heroic character. And Michelangelo, and it'd be interesting to go into the reasons. I would be interested in going into the reasons for this. But Michelangelo, instead, portrays the god of wine, who is just, this is Dionysus, of course, in Greek. Thank you, Jennifer, who is a little tipsy. He's a little drunk. He's got a beautiful body, but it's a body that's standing in kind of a relaxed pose. And his eyes, you can see, are a little out of focus. And it's a look of genius. I mean, you can see it in Florence at the Bodello Gallery. It's an amazing sculpture. But he is clearly drunk. He's the god of wine. He's what you think of with the god of wine. And I wouldn't be surprised if Michelangelo here is doing a sculpture that's trying to critique the person who actually commissioned the sculpture in a sense of, you Christians who love wine, this is what you look like. It's a nude. It's an amazing sculpture if you go and see it, right? It's not heroic. It doesn't necessarily appeal to me thematically. But when you look at what he's done and how he conveys what he's trying to convey, it's a magnificent piece of work. Anyway, when he shows this, the guy who does the commission says, go away. I mean, I'm not going to pay you for this. That's ridiculous. This is not what I expected. I expected a heroic, celebratory, toasty god of wine. You can see in the bordello, there are other gods of wine exactly the same with that more heroic, more positive theme. So you can see the contrast of what the guy wanted as part of the commission. Well, Michelangelo is stuck with this. Ultimately, the Medici's buy this and they ship it back to Florence because it's such a great work of art and they realize that. But Michelangelo is in trouble now and he needs another commission desperately. And there is a competition to do a pietà. Pietà basically is Mary holding the dead Jesus in her arms. And Michelangelo sculpts in marble a pietà. And if you've never seen the pietà by Michelangelo, the first one he does, he does at least three. But the other two are not never finished. But this one is finished. You've got to go, it's in the Vatican Museum. It's in the Vatican in Rome. Unfortunately, you can't get very close to it. It's behind glass because somebody at some point took a shot at it with a gun. So they put it behind glass. It is just one of the most stunning pieces of art ever. It is a woman holding her son who is dead on her knees. The son is strong, heroic to the extent you can tell from the dead body. And she is mourning. And you can tell from her expression. You can tell from the way her hands hold him. You can tell just from the way the clothes are draped over her. It's just a stunningly amazing, unbelievably beautiful sculpture that evokes all the emotion that I think a pietà should evoke. Now, I want to make a point here. Sideline. So we're going in all kinds of directions today. But hopefully this is a value, too. Why can one look at a pietà and a Jesus on a cross and have a positive aesthetic experience? It's Jesus. And I hate Christianity. I said it. I hate Christianity. I've said it many times. And yet here's the symbol of Christianity. And yet when you look at a pietà, or you look at some of the magnificent paintings during the Renaissance and later of a crucifixion, or if you look at Dali's crucifixion, which I in fact really liked. What is it about a crucifixion that is so powerful? And how can one abstract? How can one enjoy it, in a sense, or get something out of it? And I think to me is I abstract away from the Christian part of it. And I think of Jesus as a fighter for a new set of ideas. As somebody who believes in a new set of ideas and is fighting to have the manifest in the world, somebody heroic who is going around advocating for new ideas and who is put to death because of his ideas. Jesus did not commit a crime. He did not kill anybody, not rape anybody. He did not steal from anybody. He was a man punished for speaking. In a sense, the crucifixion, I'm putting aside all the Christian meaning, which it means to Christians. I'm putting what it means to me, is a sign, a symbol of the injustice of injustice, of what happens to heroes so many times throughout history. Yeah, by the way, yeah, so many times throughout history that where people who advocate for new ideas, people who advocate for radical ideas get crucified, get crucified. And in art that is actually presents Jesus as heroic, that is manifest physically heroic, right? Intelligent face, intelligent expression, heroic body, muscles alive, not a symbol of sacrifice, but a representation of an injustice committed to a heroic figure, to a heroic man. To that extent, I can enjoy a crucifixion. In a sense that it projects back to me, it concretizes the injustice that often occurs and you can benefit from. You can get from portrayals of injustice a huge amount. It is real. And this is why I can enjoy like Dark Ages or Middle Ages, crucifixions, but when you get into the Renaissance, particularly into the high Renaissance, the later Renaissance, Michelangelo's period, it's amazing. And then when you look at the pietà, this pietà of Michelangelo's, I mean, he is a hero. He is the mother of a hero. And the tragedy of it, the sadness of it, and yet the beauty of it are so striking. Now, the pietà was universally immediately identified as a great work of art. But people said, who did it? And somebody said, Michelangelo. They said, no, that can't be. Michelangelo did that stupid Bach sculpture. It can't be Michelangelo. Michelangelo is a nobody and he can't sculpt like this. There's no way he could do this. So there was a general rumor going around that it wasn't Michelangelo who sculpted the painting. So one night, who sculpted the pietà. So one night, Michelangelo snuck into the place where the sculpture was stored and he chiseled into the strap that goes across Mary's body. Michelangelo did this or something to the equivalent of that. Michelangelo sculpted this. Only sculpture he ever signed. After that, he didn't need to sign any sculpture because everybody knew of Michelangelo when they saw it. Of course his reputation, the pietà, made Michelangelo's reputation. He was immediately elevated to being the number one sculptor of the Renaissance. Sculptor of his generation and maybe, and I believe ultimately of all time. If you, he then goes back to Florence and in Florence, there's a big piece of marble sitting and it's been there. I don't know, I can't remember the exact timing but it's not like 80 years. It's been there a long time. And two sculptors have tried to sculpt into this. They've already chiseled into this. So they've chiseled into the top and they've chiseled into the bottom. And as they've already tried to sculpt it and both sculptors, this is a massive piece of marble, they both walked away saying, this is impossible. It is impossible to use this piece of marble. It's not a good piece of marble, it's too big but there are flaws in it, there are problems with it, we can't do it. And this piece of marble is just sitting there. It's owned by the city of Florence. And Michelangelo goes and he goes to the leaders of Florence and he says, I wanna do this. And they say, no, nobody can do it. It's just, we need to trash this piece of marble. Nobody can sculpt it. It's useless and they've already started. So you couldn't do anything anyway. He says, no, I wanna do this. And he bugs them and he bugs them and he bugs them and he's got this reputation. And he's a young kid, he's 25 years old by this point and the Medici's, he found kind of originally found them, the Medici's like him. So then they say, okay, do it, take it and do it. And here's this piece of marble that everybody thought was, you couldn't carve anything from it. And carvings that are already being done. Now marble is not like bronze. Bronze you sculpt in clay. And in clay you can add, you can subtract, you can change, you can change your mind, you can redo it, you can move things. Marble, once you chisel something away, it's gone. You don't stick it back. It's gone forever. So some of the pieces already being chiseled away. And Michelangelo sets this up in a studio and he works on it. And out of that piece of marble comes, in my view, the greatest sculpture that's ever been produced, the David. And it is truly a magnificent piece of work. I mean, and the more you see it, the more you see it up close. And when you understand marble and you see the flaws in the marble, the marble was flawed. And the fact that Michelangelo can work in spite of the flaws in the marble can create this magnificent piece of work in his mid-20s is truly, truly stunning. Now here's a David who is again naked. He's nude. He stands with confidence in Father Goliath with a look of concentration, focus on what he has to do. It is the moment before he strikes, before the fight begins. Most Davids are either of the moment afterwards with the head of Goliath already there, the moment of victory, Donatello's Goliath, Volcaccio's Goliath, all at the moment of victory. Later, Bernini will sculpt a magnificent David which is at the moment of action. You can see David in action using his, what do you call it, anyway. Getting that stone using this sling. Yeah, Jennifer, that is a picture that's kind of a drawing of Michelangelo's David in the background over there. It's really, it's really special. The primary purpose of art is contemplation for its own sake. So that the purpose here is for the reader to see what greatness man is capable of and to be inspired by that. So as I read Atlas Shrugged and any one of the heroic characters, Hank Reardon or John Gault or Francisco, these give me a model of the kind of person I might be. If you wish, but that isn't my purpose in writing. I see. My purpose is for you to look at those people and to enjoy the spectacle. As a secondary consequence, you might find yourself inspired, that's fine. But I want to give you that experience and that's what I want to give myself. I write for the purpose of creating an ideal man in actions which you can respect and admire. From what you say about art, I would judge you do not regard photography as art since it records precisely what is there. How do you feel about abstract art? Do you mean non-objective? Non-objective. I think it's less art than photography. I think it is an enormous fraud. Fraud? Yes. I don't think there's, it's impossible to discuss it seriously. It means nothing, it is nothing. The perpetrators claim that they don't know what they're doing and I think they're right. I'm willing to take them at their word. They don't know what they're doing and neither do we and the Ashken is the proper place for it.