Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo

“Paintings are never finished, only abandoned.”

Leonardo’s quip in the opening chapter belies a truth he doesn’t quite realize. At this stage of his life, his unfinished paintings are an amusement that he willfully abandons. In addition, he has many interests and chooses to focus on what meets his patrons’ needs. Later, after completing his portrait of Mona Lisa, he can’t bring himself to abandon it to her husband. He’ll never finish the portrait because he can’t bring himself to abandon it. He thus comes to see the inverted value of his quip.

“When he’d started his career, a painter was nothing but a low-class laborer, but he had forced that perception to change.”

Leonardo’s talent as an artist is evident in how he forces those around him to reconsider what it means to be a painter. Previously, painters seldom enjoyed elevated social standing. Leonardo’s talent, however, is so obvious that it transcends class expectations. In addition, his intentional focus on his patrons’ expectations, which thematically alludes to his perspective on Patriotism, Family, and Duty, gains him respect in the upper social circles. Thus, he has raised the ceiling of what a painter can be.

“On his deathbed, Duccio was rumored to have muttered in delirium that the stone had fought him as though he were not the rock’s true master.”

Michelangelo romanticizes the marble with which he works. The story about Duccio’s deathbed lament may not be true, but Michelangelo wills it to be true because he feels that his destiny is to carve this stone.