books.google.com.au - Michelangelo, instinctively and on principle, reacted against the decorative methods of the fifteenth century. If he had to paint a biblical or mythological subject, he avoided landscapes, trees, flowers, birds, beasts, and subordinate groups of figures. He eschewed the arabesques, the labyrinths of...http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Life_of_Michelangelo_Buonarotti.html?id=MME0gQjTtDIC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareThe Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti
