I was just scanning through my feeds this evening when a post by Louis Gray caught my eye. The probable reason for it catching my eye was the title “I will teach my children about Steve Jobs“. Well I just had to read it really, what reason could someone possibly have for saying something like this. Apple fanboism gone mad? I think so.
I’m going to have to quote the opening paragraph here to demonstrate:
If I ever had a chance to hear John F Kennedy give a speech, I would go. If I could see Michael Jordan in his prime, I would go to that game. If I ever had a chance to see Henry Ford at his assembly line building Model T’s, I would go. If I could have seen the first moon landing on television, I would watch. And if I could see Michaelangelo sculpt, I would pull up a chair.
But I have seen Steve Jobs do a MacWorld Keynote. And it, like the others mentioned, was delivered by a person unequaled in his craft, who, like the others, will one day be a part of the past, echoed only through our media records, and through tales passed one to another.
How, in anyone’s mind, could you compare someone like Steve Jobs to Michelangelo? Michelangelo, creator of the most incredible pieces of sculpture I have ever had the fortune to see (being “La Pietà ”), a piece of such stunning beauty that it completely took my breath away and left me standing motionless for minutes with my jaw open.
Michelangelo's Pieta
Of course, that’s just one of his incredible works of art, and the picture I’ve put in of it here does not do it justice. I have heard similar recounting of people’s experiences viewing his sculpture “David”; I have gazed up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and been amazed; and I have stood in awe at the fresco of “The Last Judgement”.
Now granted it was 15 years ago that I had first hand experience of these works of Michelangelo, I think the fact that the power of them remains with me today is justification enough to me of the magnificence of these works.
Whilst I see that Louis is attempting to state that the comparison is that of “masters of their craft”, I think he’s gone a little over the top on this one. The suggestion is that Steve Jobs will live on in the history books and the hearts and minds of people in a comparative way to Michelangelo is just nonsense.
Perhaps he is charismatic. Perhaps his company has manufactured technological devices considered well-designed by some. However, the charasmatic launch of a few products quickly forgotten by the gadget loving whores of the world does not a Michelangelo make.
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