Cézanne and Michelangelo

Robert Genn site “The Painter’s Keys” is a very interesting and rewarding art site… there aren’t so many out there… (see more at http://www.painterskeys.com/)

Today, he wrote something about “Cezanne’s Ghost”… Here is an excerpt of what he wrote:

“Cezanne was a plodder, never far from feelings of personal
failure. Persisting in relatively uninspiring subject matter,
he worked and reworked until a distinctive style emerged. In a
way, it was his sense of failure that drove him in his
obsession–trying to get it right–trying to improve on his
ideas. There’s a lesson in this. By his own admission he was
not a great artist. “Chance has not favoured me with
self-assurance,” he said. At another time in a rare moment of
bluff, he said, “I have come only to show the way.”

His alternating between extreme humility and extreme pride, his cited words about his lack of “self-assurance” made me think of Michelangelo, in the interpretation of Romain Rolland (a well written, well documented and very balanced biography of Michelangelo from 1908). In his biography, Rolland spoke about the very unsure character of Michelangelo, about his difficulty to decide one way or the other… In fact, a lack of self-assurance and a similar pendulation between extreme modesty and extreme pride.

And I was simply wondering if genius and contradictory, oscillating character, “lack of self-assurance” are not connected? Maybe because a superior intelligence sees very quickly both sides of an issue? Because there is no good thing without a bit of bad, and no bad thing without a bit of good?