Читать онлайн «The Agony and the Ecstasy»

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

He returned to the Sistine to look at the vault with sharper eyes. The architectural structure did not accommodate his new vision. He needed a new vault, a completely different ceiling which would appear to have been constructed solely for the purpose of showing his frescoes to their best advantage. But he knew better than to return to the Pope and ask for a million ducats to tear down brick, plaster, soldiers' rooms above, solid roof beyond. Serving as his own architect, he would have to rebuild that tremendous vault with the sole material available to him: paint.

Through sheer invention he must transform the ceiling, utilizing its shortcomings even as he had the gouge in the Duccio block, to force his creative powers into channels they might not otherwise have taken. Either he was the stronger, and could displace this vault space, or the force of the vault to resist would crush him.

He was determined to get a teeming humanity up on the ceiling, as well as God Almighty who created it; mankind portrayed in its breathless beauty, its weaknesses, its indestructible strengths: God in His ability to make all things possible. He must project a throbbing, meaningful vitality that would invert the universe: the vault would become the reality, the world of those looking at it would become illusion.

Also available

by the same author

Lust for Life

Depths of Glory

IRVING STONE

The Agony

and The Ecstasy

Reprinted in Arrow Books 1997

19 20 18

Copyright © Doubleday & Company Inc.

The right of Irving Stone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser First published in the United Kingdom in 1961 by William Collins Sons & Company Methuen London edition published in 1987

This edition first published in 1989 by Mandarin Paperbacks, reprinted 15 times The eighteen lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Horace Gregory, are reprinted by permission of the publisher. Copyright © 1958 by The Viking Press Inc.

The forty-five lines from Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by Lawrence Grant White, are reprinted by permission of the publisher. Copyright © 1948 by Pantheon Books.

Arrow Books Limited

Random House UK Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, New South Wales 2061, Australia Random House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited

Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Papers used by Random House UK Limited are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire ISBN 0 7493 0175 9