Michelangelo

You really don't have an idea of the enormous power of this guy until you see his sculptures face to face. He has that great quality of creating figures based on a keen insight of human anatomy. It's not just a learned process. It's something great figurative artists have. It's a total immersion into the way the body works, the way each joint involves the total articulation of tendons, bones, muscles and skin. And as if that wasn't enough, the fact that he was working in marble, using hand crafted tools. Just pure vision and hard work, and indelible talent. The prodigious amount of work he put out doesn't seem possible.