He fused and recast the antecedent materials of design in sculpture and painting, producing a quintessence of art beyond which it was impossible to advance without breaking the rhythm, so intensely strung, and without contradicting too violently the parent inspiration.

He strained the chord of rhythm to its very utmost, and made incalculable demands upon the religious inspiration of its predecessors.

His mighty talent was equal to the task of transfusion and remodelling which the exhibition of the supreme style demanded.
But after him there remained nothing for successors except mechanical imitation, soulless rehandling of themes he had exhausted by reducing them to his imperious imagination in a crucible of fiery intensity.
V No critic with a just sense of phraseology would call Michelangelo a colourist in the same way as Titian and Rubens were colourists.

Still it cannot be denied with justice that the painter of the Sistine had a keen perception of what his art required in this region, and of how to attain it.

He planned a comprehensive architectural scheme, which served as setting and support for multitudes of draped and undraped human figures.