One of the celebrated Captives, or Prisoners, originally intended for Pope Julius's tomb, but never finished.
I found this in Florence in a darkened space -- perhaps it was late in the day -- but dark nevertheless and my camera barely made it out. The impact of this and the others nearby is pretty powerful in part because these are so large and imposing in their tight spaces. But even more amazing is the feeling one gets from seeing the image seeming to emerge suddenly from the stone. Sculptors have a way of seeing and feeling that is different from mine.
On the page, watching a line take shape and eventuallly reveal a figure is one thing; but discovering a three dimensional figure emerge from a solid block of stone is quite different. It may be magic or simply imagination -- and quite clearly those are cognate words.
I see this now as having a power similar to the great Roman and Greek ruins. Most great classic sculpture is unthinkable as a complete figure. The missing arms, the broken toes, the absent head all seem part of the design rather than a disfigurement. It is what we are used to, and we have imaginatively accounted for the missing elements.
Here, this Captive is a tribute to the incomplete. It seems so much like our own efforts, sometimes impossible to finish, always impossible to perfect.