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听力文稿 ( Transcript )(Channel 4) A huge swathe of the master's work tells a new story at the British museum. They're among the most coveted artworks in the world - fetching millions of pounds at auction. But the Renaissance artist Michelangelo might have been horrified to see these particular pieces on display.

seminal：Highly influential in an original way;constituting or providing a basis for further development（本文是这个意思）: a seminal idea in the creation of a new theory

They're amongst the most coveted artworks in the world, fetching many millions of pounds at auction. But the Renaissance artist Michelangelo might have been horrified to see these particular pieces on display. The Private drawings and sketches were only used in preparation for his more famous works like the Sistine Chapel frescoes. But Tomorrow they will be going on display at the British Museum's sellout Michelangelo exhibition, its first for thirty years. Our art correspondent Nicholas Glass went along.

A hushed gallery at the British Museum and the first visitors this afternoon to this rare exhibition of Michelangelo drawings. The BM hasn't had a show like it for thirty years. We remember Michelangelo for his papal commissions, the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the Medici Chapel in Florence, in other words, his public work. Here we have been walking privately, intimately on his preparatory studies, and each in their way tells us something about him, not lists his drive for perfection, but more amounts to an obsession with the male torso.

Michelangelo made thousands of drawings, perhaps tens of thousands. Some 600 drawings survive, of which we have about 90 in this exhihition. His drawings were collected by his contemporaries, and they have been collected avidly by anyone with money ever since.

Queen Christina of Sweden collected Michelangelo drawings in the 17th century. In the 18th century the English portrait painter Thomas Lawrence, he almost went bankrupt doing so. These days the few that do come up for auction go for millions of pounds. The record 6 years ago was 8 million.

The male body is absolutely fundamental in Michelangelo's art, that is the vehicle through which he expresses everything, emotions, spiritual states, and it's really just the trunk, the torso that does that, that carries that message. And so early on, we see very sensual appreciation of the figure of Adam or at the Sistine chapel and then later on, the body begins to be much more about the vessel of the soul, the body, in fact, begins almost to dissolve. The contours've become unclear and fuzzy. That's much more about the spirit.

Michelangelo started drawing at the age of 12, and continued right into his death at 88. Was there ever a better draftsman? If you look closely you can perhaps detect a sexual tension in the work. Michelangelo was torn between two urges, his sexuality and his religious faith. He is almost certainly gay, developing a number of close relationships with the young men. Here are portraits of handsome, almost idealized contemporaries. As a teacher, he flirts with his male pupils. He draws a face which his student/ feebly copies. The student is encouraged in writing, "Andrea, have patience". Another student Antonio is admonished to draw and draw and don't waste time. As Michelangelo becomes more religious, you can find among the doodles, theseminalimage familiar from a thousand south bank shires. An early if not the first attempt at the hand of god before he painted it on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Well, I suppose it's the most famous hand in history, yeah, and in fact, a collector of that, she's just studied and couldn't resist cutting out the hand of god, and mounting on another piece of paper, saying, you know , obviously to , I've got the hand of god from the Sistine Chapel but then it's been, was replaced in the last century and put back.

Michelangelo didn't like others to know his working methods, his process, he was secretive, paranoid even, and famously towards the end of his life, he had a bonfire made and for two days burnt his drawings, all the more reason to treasure the few that escaped the flames.

Nicholas Glass from a Renaissance man to a Renaissance woman with the highlights of More4 News at eight. Serra.
Thanks John. We'll be looking further into ...