Benedetto Varchi, a philosopher of Florence.
Michelangelo wrote only one letter directly to Varchi in his lifetime.
That was… when Benedetto Varchi sent Michelangelo a transcript of a lecture he gave at the Florentine Academy during the third Sunday of Lent in 1546, titled "On the Excellence of the Arts, and Thus, Which Is More Noble Between Sculpture and Painting," along with replies from seven artists who answered related questions.
The letter in full is worth reading, but for today, just a part will be quoted.
"Whether it be sculpture or painting, let them both radiate equal intellect. Let's put an end to the debate and leave the two quietly alone. We don't even have enough time to create the works."
Michelangelo's letter was sardonic.
He preferred working to arguing.
"Well then, we'll be off."
With that, Kang-seok stood up without hesitation, along with Jo Dong-beom.
There was no need to ask—it was clear.
They were headed to work. Even in the short time he had observed him, Kang-seok was that kind of person. Jin Do-wook, director of Bloom Museum, nodded. At the same time, he gestured to Jin Yu-mi, who had been waiting near the door. It meant she should see them off.
Jin Yu-mi, a longtime curator at Bloom Museum, immediately understood.
She slowly walked with Kang-seok and Jo Dong-beom to the end of the hallway. Jo Dong-beom kept glancing back awkwardly and gave Jin Do-wook a slight bow.
Jin Do-wook returned the gesture with a small nod, then finally released the tension that had been weighing on his shoulders. Whew. His spine, unnaturally straight as if he had been wearing an ill-fitting suit, sank.
It would be more comfortable to have the familiar Jin Yu-mi personally send them off. With that thought, Jin Do-wook turned back toward his office.
But his clenched fist still trembled with tension.
Not because of the meeting with Kang-seok.
It was because of the huge event looming ahead.
His gaze cautiously shifted toward the calendar sprawled on his desk.
December 16th.
A date circled multiple times in red. The opening day of Art Basel in Miami Beach.
If the works were to be shipped in time, Kang-seok's pieces had to be completed by early December… and today was November 26th.
"Yes. They're nearly finished."
Considering Kang-seok's almost miraculous speed, "nearly finished" likely meant he could meet the deadline.
"Now it's just up to me to do well."
Jin Do-wook slowly walked toward his nameplate-topped desk and looked out the window. The entirety of Bloom Museum's exterior was visible from there.
"...So I've finally made it this far."
Jin Do-wook looked out over the museum with emotion in his eyes. His gaze traveled to the 1990s—an era he had never even witnessed.
The 1990s.
A golden era when Korean galleries repeatedly participated in the world's biggest and most prestigious art fairs.
Since then, especially into the 2010s and recent years, Korea had been criticized for having fewer galleries participating in such fairs than its national strength would suggest.
More individual Korean artists were being invited or participating through foreign galleries.
Perhaps it was because politics and big corporations had become deeply entangled in Korea's art world.
Regardless, galleries—except the top-tier ones—gradually lost ground in the so-called "Big 3" art fairs.
Of course, not everyone lost power.
Some small galleries had broken through and achieved remarkable results.
But one fair, Art Basel, remained especially inaccessible.
With over 300 galleries and more than 4,000 artists, Art Basel was truly the pinnacle of art fairs.
Only one Korean top gallery—Kukje Gallery—had maintained consistent participation… which meant that most Korean galleries had failed to break into Art Basel.
"Our Bloom Museum has been no different in that failure."
The wall of Art Basel, founded in 1970 in Basel, Switzerland, was high and steep.
It was no wonder that Jin Do-wook's dream as director was to enter Bloom Museum into Art Basel.
Art Basel participation—a goal he had nurtured in his heart from the moment he became director.
Thus, Art Basel Miami Beach this year was more critical than ever.
He had to achieve meaningful results this time.
If Bloom Museum could manage to be selected as one of the Top 10 Booths by global art platforms like Artsy, based on its achievements so far—then perhaps next year, Bloom might finally make its Art Basel debut.
"Do well. At least this year, I must succeed."
Jin Do-wook had knocked on that door repeatedly, a door that seemed especially high for Korean galleries.
This wasn't his first attempt at being selected as a top 10 booth at Art Basel Miami Beach.
He had tried before—and failed.
Until now, it had been impossible.
"But with artist Kang-seok this year…"
This time might be different.
Works by Kang-seok flashed through Jin Do-wook's mind:
Each of them stood shoulder to shoulder with artworks at Art Basel Miami Beach.
Of course, to be chosen as a top booth, sales performance mattered just as much as attention—and Kang-seok had no intention of selling his works. It would be difficult to reach the desired results with only non-sale pieces.
"But attention… That alone might be enough."
Generating buzz was the best material for traffic. As long as they could capture the people drawn in by Kang-seok's work, that would be enough.
A fierce resolve burned on Jin Do-wook's usually mild face.
It was the hunger for his dream.
He gazed out the window at Kang-seok's group walking toward the museum entrance, like a young man chasing a dream.
The
If so, Jin Do-wook needed to purchase a large booth to accommodate both Kang-seok's work and other pieces.
As large as possible.
Jin Do-wook made a call.
— "Hello?"
"This is Jin Do-wook, director of Bloom Museum."
— "Director Jin! What's going on? I was going to contact you today anyway! I heard you had a meeting with our artist Kang-seok!"
The call was to Park Sun-woo, the youngest member of the owner family of Sangang Group and a board member of Sangang Cultural Foundation.
He was unofficially referred to as "CEO" because it was widely believed that he would one day inherit all of Sangang Group's cultural enterprises, including the foundation and Bloom Museum.
"Yes. And I'm calling to ask for a favor."
— "...A favor? What kind?"
Park Sun-woo chuckled curiously through the speaker. Jin Do-wook steeled his expression and replied:
"I'd like to explain in person. Could we schedule a meeting?"
While Kang-seok was preparing his work, Jin also had to make his move.
Since Kang-seok had chosen to debut at Art Basel Miami Beach with Bloom, Jin had to provide the best treatment.
Jin Do-wook clenched his fist.
The trembling had stopped.
...
...
...
A sky filled with deep red sunset.
Outside the Bloom Museum entrance.
No sooner had they parted with curator Jin Yu-mi than Kang-seok suddenly muttered:
"I'm quite looking forward to this."
"To what… exactly?"
"To what Bloom Museum will prepare."
"Sorry?"
Would a gallery even need to prepare anything if the artist was participating in the art fair?
For Jo Dong-beom, who had only run a glass workshop, it was unfamiliar territory. He looked slightly confused.
Kang-seok quietly looked toward the director's office in the distance.
Even though the windows were glass, the reflection of the sunset made the inside invisible.
Still, Kang-seok stared at the office as if he could see right through it.
After a moment of silent staring, he curled the corner of his mouth and straightened up.
"Let's go."
"Huh? Where?"
"To the studio."
He meant Jo Dong-beom's glass workshop.
"Ah, right! Yes, of course! Master, I'll drive!"
"Sure. Thank you."
Four days remained until November 30th.
Kang-seok planned to complete the
Four days flew by.
Kang-seok sat in the dark, unlit studio, watching the glowing kiln fire gradually dim.
Jo Dong-beom, watching from the inner room, gulped.
Kang-seok was sitting at the front, Jo Dong-beom in the back.
The room, cleared of all tools and painted white, was consumed by darkness—nothing was clearly visible. But as the fire dimmed, Kang-seok's eyes adjusted.
And what he saw first—were glass human figures, standing tightly packed.
More precisely, human sculptures made of colored glass.
They stood so close that the back of one figure's head nearly touched the nose of the next—close enough to fit only a book between.
Though the room was large, five rows of fifteen glass human sculptures each, plus many smaller ones squeezed in between, filled it completely.
They were transparent yet modeled after real people—the proportions so realistic that Jo Dong-beom felt as though he was surrounded by living humans.
Creeak…
Jo Dong-beom shifted forward to sit closer to Kang-seok. The heat radiating from Kang-seok—fresh from his work—was intense like the kiln itself.
"Unbelievable stamina for a nineteen-year-old… or maybe that's why he has it."
Jo Dong-beom thought back to the hellish four days. Kang-seok had driven him like a machine, demanding more fire. His relentless stamina seemed inhuman.
Maybe the daily gym routine paid off.
Come to think of it, Kang-seok seemed bulkier lately—whether from muscle or height growth was unclear.
Just as Jo Dong-beom, wearing a puzzled expression, tried to observe him more closely…
"Boss? Would you get ready now?"
Kang-seok's voice came from the front.
"Oh! Yes, yes!"
Jo Dong-beom had been entrusted with an important task by his revered master.
As Kang-seok waited for the grand finale from the best seat in the house, Jo Dong-beom crept under the glass humans.
They varied in size—from a yellow girl under 100cm tall to a towering red basketball player over 2 meters.
Their colors were brighter than paint. They looked like plastic sculptures—yet they were made of glass.
"Seriously, how is this even possible?"
Same materials. Same workshop. Yet the result was night and day. Kang-seok was like a magician who understood and controlled light and color.
Jo Dong-beom reached the back wall.
Behind the glass sculptures were a row of LED stage lights, like those used in TV studios.
Each was mounted on a stand with adjustable handles.
Grabbing a handle like a steering wheel, Jo Dong-beom fumbled for the power switch.
His fingers found a raised button.
Click.
A pure white light turned on—no yellow hue at all. It grew brighter gradually.
There was more than one. Jo Dong-beom waddled like a duck, switching each one on.
Click.Click.Click.
Once all the lights lining the wall were on, Jo Dong-beom stared straight ahead. This was a piece that required light to be complete—he wanted to take in the finished vision all at once.
And to avoid seeing the possibly still-dark front, he kept his gaze fixed as he turned on the final light.
Without stopping, tirelessly, Jo Dongbeom moved, turning on light after light, not even thinking to turn his head. It was when he switched on the final light.
Creak.
With a metallic scraping sound, the last light tilted downward. Instinctively, Jo Dongbeom grabbed the handle and adjusted the angle of the light upwards.
At the same time, he opened his mouth to report to Kangseok that all the lights were on.
"Master. They're all on now… Wow. Huh? Whoa, this is really…!"
His report naturally faded into a breathless exclamation.
Inside the space bathed in light so bright it put most lighting to shame—
On the white wall, overlapping colorful shadows cast by over a hundred glass human sculptures created a single landscape.
It was a sunset.
A sunset projected onto the white wall like a beam from a projector.
A breathtaking scene, created by over a hundred glass figures.
Jo Dongbeom was awestruck.
He had seen how light passing through stained glass in cathedrals could carry color, so he was well aware that shadows cast through glass could hold vivid hues—but this vivid? This powerful?
The wall was filled with what looked like an oil painting made entirely from light, as if paint had been sprayed directly with beams of light.
The shadows of the colored glass sculptures overlapped, merged, and formed a picture.
Or—could it even be called a picture?
The shapes of clouds engraved on the figures were so clear and beautiful, they resembled a photograph.
"So that's why the inside of the glass figures had all those uneven textures!"
Like DelmonX glass bottles with their bumps and ridges, he had wondered why such rough textures were added—but now it made sense. The purpose wasn't just to blend shadows. The ridges combined to form clouds.
The patterns shot out like shadows, overlapping, diffusing, splitting—forming clouds that looked like they were truly floating in the sky.
And in the areas where the light didn't reach, there were shadows, giving the impression of dark, flat-topped buildings silhouetted beneath the sky.
Seven-tenths of the white wall was filled with sky. The remaining three-tenths, shadowed buildings.
Large.
And vast.
Staring into the wide-open, heart-stirring sunset, Jo Dongbeom thought:
If this were viewed in a bigger space, would it be even more overwhelmingly beautiful?
He wanted to see it.
"Should I go to Miami Beach too?"
He chuckled at his own ridiculous thought and turned his gaze forward again.
Since the sunset was created by lighting up the hundred glass human figures from behind, it was immensely colorful.
There were many glass humans with a pink hue, so the pink projected onto the wall wasn't just one tone.
There was pink like a rose, pink like the edge of a peach, soft cherry blossom pink, and pink like flamingo feathers.
Overlapping those were the vermilions of ripe persimmons, marigolds, and fox fur.
The red of apples, bold reds like lipstick, and blood-colored reds.
The purples of jacaranda, velvet, and amethyst.
Above that, layers of sky blue, blue, navy, black, and white...
As he stared at the scene created by dozens of overlapping glass figures, Jo Dongbeom slowly stepped back. The farther he moved, the more breathtaking the light became.
Even real sunsets weren't this vivid.
Eventually, feeling the wall at his back, Jo Dongbeom held his breath.
— "It's nothing much…"
— "It's nothing much?"
— "I just wanted to compare my piece with the sunset at Miami Beach."
Kangseok's words from four days ago echoed in his mind.
So this was it.
This was what he wanted to compare with the sunset at Miami Beach.
Jo Dongbeom murmured as he stared at the beautiful lightscape that seemed too perfect to have been created by human hands.
"...We've won."
He had beaten Miami Beach.
Here, in this space, existed a beauty more perfect than nature itself.
Here was a display of colors that no camera lens could capture, no photo could reproduce.
This is what the pinnacle of glass artistry might look like, Jo Dongbeom thought, completely overwhelmed.
And then came a strange sense of déjà vu.
Jo Dongbeom… had traveled abroad often since young.
He had, of course, seen sunsets at Miami Beach. The vibrant, pink-hued sunsets were beautiful—but this… was incomparable.
This reminded him of… a few other sunsets that had deeply moved him in his life. Moments where the beauty felt overwhelming.
And now, this scene before him—
It resembled the sky over Florence, Italy.
That's it!
He couldn't possibly forget.
Sitting on the steps at the corner of the plaza, listening to music atop the hill known as Michelangelo Hill, watching the sunset-drenched sky—how could he forget that?
But wait—was that even possible?
While crafting over a hundred glass humans, Kangseok had never once lit them up. He had been so pressed for time he couldn't even reheat the kiln.
So how… how could he recreate the sunset of a specific region? Down to the patterns on the figures, their posture, the angle of light, and the shape of the clouds?
No way…
Could he really…?
But as he reviewed the thought again, it did seem like something Kangseok could do.
After all, wasn't this the man who constantly created miracles without even knowing how?
"And just look at how exact it is."
The sky that reddens the Arno River and the terracotta rooftops of Florence. Even the way the sun melts across the horizon…!
Jo Dongbeom nodded.
Yes. There's no way I'm imagining this.
His eyes darted to Kangseok, who was still staring at the light-painted wall.
For some reason, Kangseok looked as though he was lost in nostalgia.
"Now that I think about it…"
Jo Dongbeom remembered something his master had once said.
— "I never forget something I've seen, not easily."
It was true. Kangseok had created thousands of glass butterflies without needing references. He did the same with the glass peonies. As if it all lived inside his mind—Kangseok always created from memory.
And thinking of that, Jo Dongbeom suddenly wondered if his crazy theory wasn't so crazy after all.
He slowly murmured,
"It's probably just my imagination, but… this really feels like that time I climbed Michelangelo Hill in Florence. Like, if there were majestic music playing right now, it'd be identical… Uh, um, no way…"
And then Kangseok slowly turned to him.
"Michelangelo Hill?"
He looked at Jo Dongbeom with eyes asking, "What's that?"
Wait, what?
Was he wrong?
Jo Dongbeom scratched his head, shrinking with embarrassment.
"Oh… maybe not? It's this plaza in Florence made to honor Michelangelo… the sunset there is really famous, so…"
"That kind of place exists?"
Kangseok's lips twitched into a slight smile.
He had studied art deeply, but because of family circumstances, he'd never even dreamed of traveling abroad. Even before regaining memories of a past life, he had always thought, Someday, I'll go to Italy and see Michelangelo's sculptures.
So that's what it's called.
Michelangelo Hill.
He chuckled quietly to himself.
Seeing that reaction, Jo Dongbeom wondered if he'd misunderstood and rubbed his head in embarrassment.
"Um… was I wrong?"
If so, he'd been rude.
Saying a piece of art "resembles" something can sometimes offend an artist.
Jo Dongbeom bowed his head.
"I'm sorry, Master. I got too excited…"
"No. You're right."
Kangseok cut him off.
"Pardon?"
"I said, you're right. The sunset from Michelangelo Hill."
Among the hills in Florence, that's the only one with such a beautiful sunset.
Kangseok organized his thoughts and looked forward again.
A fiery sunset filled his vision.
Dear Florence.
The home of his past life.
That sky from the hill.
"Though, of course, this is more beautiful."
Before it was tainted by everything, that overly vivid sky.
"…Ah! Yes! Of course. I also thought it was even more beautiful."
How could he forget the sunset he had seen thousands—tens of thousands—of times? The sunset he sketched over and over again atop that hill, now recreated by Kangseok.
"There's still much to learn and a long way to go…"
Kangseok thought.
But finally… after all this time, it feels like I've taken one small step toward perfection.
How long had they stood there?
Just as Jo Dongbeom felt like his eyes would be swallowed by the light—
Kangseok ended his reverie and stood up.
"Well then, I'll be on my way."
"…Huh?"
Where to?
Jo Dongbeom looked at him in surprise.
But Kangseok, unfazed, gathered the jacket he had taken off earlier due to the heat.
"I'll contact them, so don't worry. Someone from the Bloom Museum will come pick it up soon."
"…Huh?"
"Thanks for letting me borrow your studio, boss. Once I wrap everything up, I'll treat you to something good."
"Ma—Master?"
With that, Kangseok headed for the inner room.
November 30.
He still had one more task—turning the marble he left at Yang Seon-gu's hanok into a sculpture.
"I'll be going now."
"Ma—Master! At least have dinner before you leave!"
"I'm good!"
A man who lives and dies for sculpture. Who's completely consumed by it.
That was Kangseok.
He left the workshop quickly, visibly excited at the thought of his next creation.
Outside, a sunset was unfolding.
One not nearly as beautiful as the one Kangseok had created.