The Agony and the Ecstasy
Mr. Stone gives his signature style and thought to this story of Michelangelo. He points out often in this book that Michelangelo, before beginning a work, asks what it is he is trying to capture in the moment of his painting, sculpture, or poem. So it is with Mr. Stone. He wants to portray, as close as he can find, the moments of the life of this artist. What shaped him, what he loved, what (and whom) he hated. At the moments Stone writes of. A great book, and one I hope to read again.
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9mentions
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2012–2026years
78% recommend22% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- my father made reading The Agony and The Ecstasy a requirement to go to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school. It's a thick tome, but a great read if you're a curious kid.
as the others said Michelangelo hated doing that painting. He's a very tragic, albeit heroic to me, man. I'd recommend that book if you're at all fascinated by him.
- Related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_(nov... Great book!
- I'm 64 and retired last year. I spent 4 decades programming, and everything changes all the time, and I always learned new things. I am still learning new things, and still writing code to support my generative art. Admittedly I was finally burned out of the grind of working as a programmer, but it took a whole lifetime. But to truly approach new things you have to be willing to let go of the old, even programming if necessary, but without forgetting what you learned. A lifetime is a long time; you really don't need to just do one thing the whole time.
A quote from a novel has always been an inspiration since I read it in high school - "An artist must leave a body of work" from The Agony And The Ecstasy, about Michelangelo. If your programming no longer excites you, learn something new in programming, or even learn something that isn't programming and do that. It's not easy, and might cost you money, but wasting your life doing something you no longer care about is not worth it.
Of course some people can deal with a terrible job, and just spend the non-working time doing what they love, and that's OK if you can deal with it. I could never do that; I didn't turn to art until the last few years.
- [ A quote from a novel has always been an inspiration since I read it in high school - "An artist must leave a body of work" from The Agony And The Ecstasy, about Michelangelo. If your programming no longer excites you, learn something new in programming, or even learn something that isn't programming and do that. It's not easy, and might cost you money, but wasting your life doing something you no longer care about is not worth it.
-What about economics, a management role or something else? my advice: Have the habbit to improve your habbits (including your thinking) the medicine = reading btw
]
- The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. It's a biographical novel about Michelangelo. It made a profound statement to me when I was young that "an artist must leave a body of work" - it's not enough to just do one thing one time, but devote your life to being continuously creative and never be satisfied. I've tried to do that in everything I've done, whether as a programmer, musician, writer, or lately, artist.
- The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone, perhaps? Its the first thing that came to mind when I saw this. Irving Stone's Lust for Life, about Vincent Van Gogh, is pretty good as well.
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