““So what was Michelangelo’s real message? “SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST”? A more profound and legitimate explanation of the Sistine is that perhaps it is nothing less than a huge self-portrait of Michelangelo. The images are meant to reflect his life and beliefs: his feelings torn between his love for Judaic lore and wisdom and his passion for pagan art and design; his inner conflict between his spiritual love of God and his physical love for men; his respect for Christianity (even after he was no longer a Catholic) and his righteous anger at the pope and at the corruption of the Vatican in the Renaissance; his love of Classical traditions and his passionate defense of freethinking and new ideas; his Kabbalistically inspired mysticism joined to his Neoplatonism and his carnal earthiness.””
![“driven, passionate, mercurial, irascible" [the character of Michelangelo]” quote by Miles J. Unger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/21c/miles-j-unger-109392_michelangelo_driven-passionate-mercurial-irascible-th_1741951.jpg)
