We humans are enthralled by sheer size  and scale of things. Think about it , we always pore over the largest building, the biggest event, the biggest plane and the list goes on and on. As a society we seem to be tilting towards the idea of bigger a statue better it is ! I always feel over time people lost the ability to appreciate the subtleties of things. For example take a look at this picture  below. Called Madonna of the Stairs and sculpted by Michelangelo at the tender age of seventeen, it was one of his earliest works. Yes it is beautiful but is that all there is to it?  Devoid of any technology except his hammer, chisel and  the depth of his perception he carved beautiful sculptures. I shall quote a section from a biographical novel "The Agony and Ecstasy" on him by Irving Stone
to give you an idea of what went into this creation and why it symbolizes the excellence of execution, for years to come.

 

"There were so many things to think of at one time. His strokes had to hit towards the main mass,strike the marble toward the block it came out of, so that it could sustain the blow. He had designed his figures and stairs in a vertical position to lessen the possibility of cracking the block, but found that the marble would not yield to exterior force without accenting its own essence: stoniness. He had not realized to what extent marble had to be battled. His respect for  his material grew blow by blow."

Today to analyze any material we have a plethora of tools at our disposal. The man, from the moment he selected the marble block till the time he would finish the work would  be one with his marble.He would have to submit himself completely to it.  As the book quotes "Yet a marble contained a myriad of forms;had this not been so, all sculptors would carve identically." 

A custom  which Michelangelo used  to select the marble really fascinates me.

He would take the marble to a location which would receive the first morning light and observe how light falls on the marble. The seemingly transclucent marble and its veins and lines would be dissected  by his vision before making a choice. But why the morning light ? Why not the light due to any other source ?

I think it has to do something with the very nature of sunlight itself. It is composed of all seven colours which means there are seven distinct light waves which together give the perception of a single colour. Those days they didnt have any other light source which had  all the seven colours  in it. Or it would be that light coming from such great distance has planar wavefronts. For the layman, light which has planar wavefronts means the cross section to any light wave  is essentially a flat surface. Well something to figure out, right ? Interesting that he knew this in 1490, with no schooling or formal education to speak of...