Sistine Chapel ceiling

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The Sistine Chapel ceiling , painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a very important work of High Renaissance art.

The ceiling is the Sistine Chapel, a large chapel built at the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV, named after the chapel. It was painted on the commission of Pope Julius II. Chapel is a location for papal conclaves and many other important services.

Various elements painted ceilings form part of a larger decoration scheme in the Chapel, which includes a large painting of The Last Judgment on the asylum wall, also by Michelangelo, a fresco by some of the eminent painters of the deceased. The fifteenth century included Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino, and a large set of tapestries by Raphael, the whole of which depicts the many doctrines of the Catholic Church.

The center of the ceiling decoration is the nine scenes from Genesis where Adam's Creation is the best known, has the same standing icon as Leonardo da Vinci ' s Mona Lisa , the hand of God and Adam is reproduced in countless imitations. The complex design includes multiple sets of individual figures, both dressed and naked, allowing Michelangelo to fully demonstrate his expertise in creating various poses for human figures and which has provided a very influential model book pattern for other artists ever since..

Video Sistine Chapel ceiling

Context and history

Pope Julius II was a "pope warrior" who in his papacy conducted an aggressive campaign for political control, to unite and empower Italy under the leadership of the Church. He invested in symbolism to display his temporal power, like a procession, by Classical means, through the triumphal arches in chariots after one of his many military victories. It was Julius who began the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in 1506, as the most powerful symbol of the pope's source of power.

In the same year 1506, Pope Julius devised a program to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The walls of the chapel had been decorated twenty years earlier. The lowest of the three levels are painted to resemble the ornaments on display and (and sometimes still are) hanged on special occasions with sets of rugs designed by Raphael. The middle tier contains an elaborate fresco scheme that depicts the Life of Christ on the right and the Life of Moses on the left. It was done by some of the most famous Renaissance painters: Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Signorelli and Cosimo Rosselli. The upper level wall contains a window, among which painted a pair of illusioned alcoves with representations of the first thirty-two whales. A design by Matteo d'Amelia shows that the ceiling is painted blue like the one in the Chapel Arena and decorated with gold stars, possibly representing the constellations of the zodiac star. Perhaps, since the chapel is a regular meeting place and the Mass of an elite body of officials known as the Pontifical Chapel that will observe the decoration and interpret their theological and temporal significance, it is the intention and hope of Pope Julius that the iconography of the ceiling should be read with many layers of meaning.

Michelangelo, who is not primarily a painter but a sculptor, is reluctant to take on a job. Also, he is busy with a very large statue commission for his own pope's tomb. The Pope insisted, leaving Michelangelo no choice but to accept. But the war with France broke out, distracted the pope, and Michelangelo fled from Rome to continue his sculpting. The grave statues, however, were never finished because in 1508 the pope returned to Rome and called Michelangelo to begin work on the ceiling. The contract was signed on May 10, 1508.

The scheme proposed by the pope was for the twelve great apostles to occupy the pendent. However, Michelangelo negotiated for a more magnificent scheme, much more complicated and finally allowed, in his own words, "to do what I like". His scheme for the ceiling eventually comprised about three hundred figures and took four years to be executed, completed and shown publicly on All Saints Day in 1512 after the preliminary and papal masses on August 14, 1511. It is unknown and is the subject of much speculation among art historians whether Michelangelo is really capable of "doing what he likes". It has been argued that Augustinian and cardinal monks, Giles of Viterbo, were consultants for the theological aspects of the work. Many authors assume that Michelangelo has intelligence, Bible knowledge, and the power of discovery has designed the scheme itself. This is supported by Ascanio Condivi's assertion that Michelangelo read and re-read the Old Testament while he was painting the ceiling, drawing his inspiration from scripture words, rather than from the established tradition of sacred art. A total of 343 numbers are painted on the ceiling.

Maps Sistine Chapel ceiling

Method

To reach the ceiling of the chapel, Michelangelo designed his own scaffold, a flat wood platform on brackets built from holes in the wall near the top of the window, instead of being built from the floor. Mancinelli speculates that this is to cut the cost of wood. According to Michelangelo's student and biographer Ascanio Condivi, parentheses and frames that support steps and floors are all placed at the beginning of work and lightweight screens, perhaps cloth, are suspended underneath to capture plaster dust, dust, and paint splashes. Only half the building was stepped on at one time and the platform was moved when the painting was done gradually. The area of ​​the wall covered by scaffolding still appears as an unpainted area at the bottom of the lunettes. The holes were reused to hold the scaffold in the latest restoration.

Contrary to popular belief, he painted in a standing position, not lying on his back. According to Vasari, "The work was done in a very uncomfortable condition, from which he must work with his head tilted up". Michelangelo describes his physical discomfort in a cute sonnet accompanied by a small sketch.

The painting technique used is fresco, in which the paint is applied to the wet plaster. Michelangelo was an apprentice at Domenico Ghirlandaio's workshop, one of the most competent and productive Florentine fresco painters, at the time the latter working on the fresco cycle at Santa Maria Novella and whose work was represented on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. At first, the plaster, intonaco , began to grow mushrooms because it was too wet. Michelangelo had to take it off and start again. He then tried a new formula made by one of his assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco, who rejected the mold and entered the tradition of Italian buildings.

Since he is painting fresco, the plaster is placed in a new section every day, called giornata . At the beginning of each session, the edges will be eroded and a new area is defined. The border between giornate remains slightly visible; thus, they give a good idea of ​​how the work takes place. It is common for fresco painters to use full-size image details, a cartoon , to transfer the design onto the plaster surface - many frescoes show small holes made with stilettos, outlining the figures. Here Michelangelo broke the convention; Once convinced intonaco has been properly applied, he immediately slid into the ceiling. The energetic sweep lines can be seen on several surfaces, while on the other side there is a grille, indicating that it enlarges directly to the ceiling from the thumbnail.

Michelangelo painted into moist plaster using washing techniques to apply large areas of color, then as the surface became drier, he revisited this area with a more linear approach, adding shade and detail with various brushes. For some textured surfaces, such as facial hair and woodgrain, it uses a wide brush with coarse bristles like a comb. He uses all of the best workshop methods and the best innovations, combining them with a variety of toothbrushes and breadth of skill far beyond the careful Ghirlandaio.

Work begins at the far end of the building from the altar, with the latest narrative scene, and progresses to the altar with the Creation scene. The first three scenes, from the story of Noah, contain a much smaller number of small figures than the next panels. This is partly due to the subject matter, which relates to the fate of Humanity, but also because all the numbers at the end of the ceiling, including the prophets and Ignudi , are smaller than in the center.. As the scale grew larger, Michelangelo's style became wider; The last narrative scene of God in the act of Creation is painted in one day.

Bright colors and clear and undefined outlines make every subject easy to see from the floor. Despite the height of the ceiling, the proportion of Adam's Creation is such that when standing underneath it, "it looks as if the audience can only lift a finger and meet God and Adam". Vasari tells us that the ceiling is "unfinished", that its revelation occurs before it can be reworked with gold leaf and the lively blue layer as usual with the fresco and to further connect the ceiling to the wall underneath which is highlighted with lots of gold. But this never happened, partly because Michelangelo was reluctant to install the scaffold again, and possibly because the gold and especially the intense blue would be disturbed from the conception of the painter.

Some areas, in fact, are decorated with gold: a shield between Ignudi and a column between the Prophet and Sibyls. It seems very likely that the shield stand is part of the original scheme of Michelangelo, as they are painted to resemble a parade shield, a number that still exist and are decorated in the same style as gold.

Reference section.

Michelangelo wrote a poem describing the difficult conditions in which he worked

I have developed mumps by living in this nest -

Like a cat from a stagnant stream in Lombardy,

Or on what other land they want -

That pushes the belly under the chin:

My beard appears to heaven; nape fall,

Stay on my spine: my chest is visible

Grows like a harp: rich embroidery

Bedewah my face from thick and thin brushes.

my waist to my stomach like a grinding lever:

My butt is like a crupper bore my weight;

My legs are wide-eyed;

In front of my skin grows loose and long; behind,

By bending it to be firmer and strait;

Crosses me tense me like a Syrian bow:

From what's wrong and weird, I know,

Must be the eyes and the narrowing of the brain;

Because the pain can direct the gun that bends.

At that time, Giovanni, try

To return my dead and my photos;

For offenses, fees and paintings are my disgrace.

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Content

The overtly open subject is the doctrine of human need for Salvation as offered by God through Jesus. This is a visual metaphor of human need for covenant with God. The Old Testament The children of Israel through Moses and the New Testament through Christ have been represented around the walls of the chapel. Some experts, including Benjamin Blech and the Vatican art historian Enrico Bruschini, also recorded less obvious subjects, which they described as "hidden" and "forbidden."

The main component of the design is the nine scenes from Genesis, the five smaller ones each framed and supported by four naked youth or Ignudi . At both ends, and below the screen are the numbers of the twelve men and women who foretold the birth of Jesus. In a crescent-shaped area, or lunettes, above each of the chapel windows is a list of the Patriarch's tablets and the accompanying figures. Above them, in the triangle spandrels, eight further figure groups are shown, but this has not been identified with any particular biblical character. The scheme is complemented by four major angle pendentif , each depicting a dramatic story of the Bible.

The elements of the ceiling narrative illustrate that God made the World as a perfect creation and puts humanity into it, that humanity falls into disgrace and is executed and separated from God. Humanity was further and deeper in sin and disgrace, and was punished by the Flood. Through the lineage of the Patriarchs - from Abraham to Joseph - God sends the savior of humanity, Christ Jesus. The coming of the Savior was prophesied by the prophets of Israel and Sibyls of the Classical world. The various components of the ceiling are related to this Christian doctrine. Traditionally, the Old Testament is regarded as a New Testament preacher. Many of the incidents and characters of the Old Testament are generally understood as having a direct symbolic connection to certain aspects of the life of Jesus or an important element of Christian doctrine or sacraments such as Baptism or the Eucharist. Jonah, for example, is easily recognized by his attributes of the great fish and is usually seen to symbolize Jesus' death and resurrection.

While many of the symbols of the ceiling come from the early church, the ceiling also has elements that express special Renaissance thought that seeks to reconcile Christian theology with the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism. During the 15th century in Italy, and in Florence in particular, there was a strong interest in Classical literature and the philosophy of Plato, Socrates, and other Classical writers. Michelangelo, as a youth, has spent time in the Humanist academy founded by the Medici family in Florence. He was familiar with the earliest inspired sculptures of Humanis like Donatello's bronze David and he himself responded by carving a huge nude marble David , placed in a piazza near Palazzo Vecchio, home of the Florence council. Humanis's vision of humanity is one in which people respond to others, social responsibility, and to God in a direct way, not through intermediaries, such as the Church. This is contrary to the Church's emphasis. While the Church emphasizes humanity as essentially sinful and defective, Humanism emphasizes humanity as a potentially noble and beautiful person. Both of these views are not always irreconcilable by the Church, but only through the recognition that the unique way to achieve this "elevation of spirit, mind and body" is through the Church as God's agent. Being outside the Church is outside Safety . In the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo presents both Catholic and Humanist elements in a way that does not seem visually contrary. The inclusion of "non-biblical" figures such as Sibyl or Ignudi is consistent with the rationalization of Humanist and Christian thought about Renaissance. This rationalization is the target of the Counter Reform.

The ceiling icons have had various interpretations in the past, some elements that have been contradicted by modern science. Others, such as the identity of the characters in lunettes and spandrels, continue to oppose the interpretation. Modern scholars have attempted, having not succeeded, to determine the written source of the theological program of the ceiling and have questioned whether or not it is fully designed by the artist himself, who is both a faithful reader of the Bible and a genius. Also of interest to some modern scholars is the question of how the spiritual and psychological state of Michelangelo is reflected in the iconography and expression of the ceiling. One such speculation is that Michelangelo was tortured by a conflict between homosexual desires and a passionate Christian faith.

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Michelangelo's scheme is realized

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Architectural scheme

Real

The Sistine Chapel is 40.9 meters long and 14 meters wide. The ceiling rises to 13.4 meters above the main floor of the chapel. Safes are a fairly complex design and it is unlikely that it was originally intended to have intricate decorations. Pier Matteo d'Amelia provides plans for decoration with selected architectural elements and blue painted ceilings and decorated with gold stars, similar to the Arena Chapel decorated by Giotto di Padua.

The walls of the chapel have three horizontal levels with six windows on the upper level on each side. There are also two windows at each end, but this has been closed on the altar when Michelangelo's Last Judgment is painted, wiping out two lunettes. Between windows is pendent that supports the vault. Between pendentives is a triangle-shaped arch or spandrels cut into a vault above each window. Above the height of pendentives, the ceiling is gently tilted without much deviation from the horizontal. This is a real architecture . Michelangelo has described it with illusory architecture or fictitious .

Illusion

The first element in a painted architectural scheme is the definition of a real architectural element by highlighting the line at which spandrels and pendentives intersect with a curved dome. Michelangelo paints this as a decorative program that looks like a carved stone mold. It has two recurrent motifs, a general formula in Classical architecture. Here, one motif is the seed, the family symbol of both Pope Sixtus IV, who built the chapel, and Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo's work. Another motif is the shell shell, one of the Madonna symbols, which the chapel presupposes was ordained in 1483. The crown of the wall then rises above the spandrels, into a strongly painted symbol that extends around the ceiling, separating the pictorial areas from the scene -the biblical scene of the figures of the Prophets, Sibyl, and Patriarchs, who literally and figuratively support the narratives. Ten broadly painted crossribs of travertine crossed the ceiling and divided them into wide and narrow pictorial spaces alternately, grids that gave all the numbers of the places specified.

A large number of small figures are integrated with painted architecture, their purpose seems purely decorative. These include two imitation marble putti under the cornice of each rib, each pair of men and women; stone rams-heads are placed at the top of each spandrel; bare copper figures in various poses, hiding in the shadows, propped between spandrels and ribs like animated books; and more putti, both dressed and unclothed attack various poses because they support the signboards of the Prophets and Sibyl. Above the cornice and on either side of the smaller scene is a circular shield array, or medaillons. They are framed by a total of twenty more numbers, called Ignudi , which are not part of the architecture but sit on decorative mats, their legs planted convincingly on a fictitious cornice. Taking turns, Ignudi seems to occupy space between the narrative space and the chapel itself. (See below)

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Image schema

Nine scenes from the Book of Genesis

Along the center of the ceiling, Michelangelo described nine scenes from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The pictures are arranged into three groups of three large and small panels alternating.

The first group shows God creating Heaven and Earth. The second group shows God creating the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, and their disobedience to God and the consequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden where they live and where they walk with God. The third group of three pictures shows the suffering of Humanity and especially the family of Noah.

The pictures are not in strictly chronological order. If they are considered as three groups, then the images in each of the three units are mutually informed to each other, in the same way as is commonly in Medieval paintings and stained glass. The three parts of Creation, the Fall, and the Destiny of Humanity appear in reverse order, when read from the chapel's entrance. However, each individual scene is painted to be seen when looking towards the altar. This is not easy to see when viewing images reproduced from the ceiling but becomes clear when viewers look up in the vault. Paoletti and Radke show that this reverse development symbolizes back to a state of grace. However, these three sections are generally described in chronological order of the Bible.

The scene, from the altar to the main door, is ordered as follows:

1. Light and Dark Separation
2. Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Earth
3. Separation of Land and Water
4. Creation of Adam
5. Creation of Eve
6. Temptation and Expulsion
7. Noah's Victim
8. Great Flood
9. The Drunkenness of Noah

Creation

The three Creation pictures show scenes from the first chapter Genesis, connecting that God created the Earth and all that is in it in six days, resting on the seventh day. In the first scene, First Day of Creation, God creates light and separates the light from the darkness. Chronologically, the next scene takes place in the third panel, where, on Day Two, God divides the water from the sky. In the central panel, the greatest of the three, there are two representations of God. On the Third Day, God created the Earth and made it sprout. On the fourth day , God placed the Sun and Moon in place to set the night and day, time and season of the year. According to Genesis, on the Fifth Days, God created birds in the air and fish and deep creatures, but we are not shown this. Neither do we see the creation of God of beings on earth on the Sixth Day.

These three scenes, completed in the third stage of painting, are the most widely understood, the most widely painted and most dynamic of all images. From the first scene Vasari says "... Ã, Michelangelo describes God dividing the Light from the Darkness, showing it in all its glory as he rests independently with outstretched hands, in revelation of love and creative power."

Adam and Eve

For the central part of the ceiling, Michelangelo has taken four episodes from the story of Adam and Eve as told in the first, second and third occurrences. In the order of three, two large panels and one small.

In the first picture, and one of the most widely known pictures in the history of the painting, Michelangelo shows God reach out to touch Adam, who, in Vasari's words, is "a figure of beauty, poses and contours as it appears to have been created by then first and foremost than by the image and brush of a mortal man. "From under God's protection arm, Eve looks out, a bit restless. The "Glory" of God, represented by the dark areas around it, has the same anatomical geometry with the human brain.

The central scene, God created Eve from Adam's sleeping side has been taken in composition directly from the other Creation sequences, the relief panels that surround the door of the Basilica of San Petronio, Bologna by Jacopo della Quercia whose work Michelangelo had studied in his youth.

In the last panel of this sequence Michelangelo combines two contrasting scenes into one panel, ie Adam and Eve take the fruit from the forbidden tree, Eve confidently takes it from the hand of the Snake and Adam eagerly takes it for himself; and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, where they lived in God's company, to the outside world where they had to fight for themselves and experience death.

The Story of Noah

As the first image order, the three panels of Noah, taken from the sixth to ninth chapters of the Book of Genesis are thematic and not chronological. In the first scene is shown the sacrifice of a sheep. Vasari, in the writings of this scene thought it was a sacrifice by Cain and Abel, where Ababel's sacrifice was accepted by God and Cain was not. What this picture depicts is almost certainly the sacrifice made by the family of Noah, after their safe release from the Great Flood that destroys other human beings.

Center, bigger, the scene shows the Big Flood. The Ark where Noah's family escaped floats in the back of the picture while the rest of humanity tried frantically to scramble to some safety point. This image, which has a large number of characters, fits perfectly with the painting format that has been performed around the walls.

The last scene is the story of Noah's drunkenness. After the Flood, Noah cultivated the land and cultivated the vines. He was shown doing that, in the background of the image. He becomes drunk and inadvertently exposes himself. His youngest son, Ham, took his two brothers, Sem and Yapeth, to see the scene but they secretly covered their father in robes. Ham was later condemned by Noah and said that the offspring of the son of Ham Kanaan would serve the Shem and Yafet descendants forever. Taken together, these three images serve to show that Man has moved away from God's perfect creation. However, through the Sem and his descendants, the people of Israel, that Salvation will come into the world.

Because Michelangelo executes nine scenes of the Bible in reverse chronological order, some of the fresco analyzes of the vault begin with Inner Drunkenness . Neoplatonik's interpretation Tolnay saw the story of Noah at the beginning and the act of Creation by God as the conclusion of the process of deificatio and the return from the physical to the spiritual being.

Shields

Adjacent to the smaller Biblical scene and supported by Ignudi are ten circular circular shields, sometimes described as painted like bronze. A well-known example is wood lacquered and golden wood. Each is decorated with images taken from the Old Testament or the Maccabean Book of the Apocrypha.

The subject is more terrible or embarrassing than the biblical episode, the only exception that looks like Elijah being swept to Heaven in a Railway, leaving his coat to fall on Elisha. However, Elijah's role as a prophet is marked by accusations and warnings to repent, and the purpose of his translation to Heaven is traditionally seen as such that he may stand before God to punish Israel for his sins. In four of the five most completed "medals", the space is packed with characters in violent action, similar to Michelangelo's cartoons for the Battle of Cascina.

The application of gold on the shield, in contrast to the absence in the rest of the ceiling, serves to connect the ceiling to some extent with the frescoes around the walls. Lastly, the gold leaf has been used extensively for many details and in some frescoes, especially those by Perugino, has been most expertly used not only for the cloak detail but for highlighting the folds by fine graduation in the density of gold spots. This is a technique that Michelangelo has taken and takes a step further, inspired also perhaps by the medal that appears in the Roman triumphal arch in the Botticelli episode of the Lives of Moses, showing the Rebellion of the Rebels .

Medals represent:

• Abraham will sacrifice his son Isaac
• Destruction of Baal Statue
• The Baal worshipers were brutally slaughtered.
• Uriah was beaten to death.
• Nathan, the priest cursed King David for murder and adultery.
• The son of King David's traitor, Absalom, caught his hair in a tree while trying to escape and be beheaded by David's army.
• Joab sneaks into Abner to kill him
• Joram is thrown from cart to head.
• Elijah was taken to Heaven
• On one medal, the subject is deleted or incomplete.

Reference section

Twelve prophetic numbers

On five pendulums on each side and both at both ends, Michelangelo depicts the largest numbers on the ceiling: twelve men who foretold or represented several aspects of Christ's Coming. Of the twelve, seven are the prophet of Israel and the male sex. The remaining five are prophets of the Classical World, called Sibyls and women. The prophet Jonah was placed on the altar and Zechariah at the far end. Other male and female figures take turns on each side, each identified with writing on a painted marble panel supported by putto.

• Jonah ( IONAS ) - above the altar
• Jeremiah ( HIEREMIAS )
• Persian Sibyl ( PERSICHA )
• Yehezkiel ( EZECHIEL )
• Erythraean Sibyl. ( ERITHRAEA )
• Joel ( IOEL )
• Zechariah ( ZACHERIAS ) - above the chapel's main door
• Delphic Sibyl. ( DELPHICA )
• Isaiah ( ESAIAS )
• Cumaean Sibyl. ( CVMAEA )
• Daniel ( DANIEL )
• Libyan Sibyl ( LIBICA )

Prophet

The seven prophets of Israel who were chosen for filming in the ceiling included four great prophets called Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Of the remaining possibilities between the Twelve Apostles, the three represented are Yoel, Zechariah and Jonah. Although the prophets of Joel and Zechariah are considered "small" because of relatively few pages whose prophecy they occupy in the Bible, each produces a very important prophecy.

They are often quoted, Joel for "your son and daughter will prophesy, your parents will dream and your youth will see the vision". These words are very important to Michelangelo's decorative scheme, where women take their place among men and young Daniel sitting across from Jeremiah muses with his long white beard.

Zechariah prophesied, "Behold, your king cometh in unto you, humble and riding on a donkey." His place in the chapel was just above the door where the Pope was brought in a procession on Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus fulfilled the prophecy by going up to Jerusalem with a donkey and proclaimed as King.

Jonah has symbolic and prophetic meaning, which is commonly felt and has been represented in many works of art including manuscripts and stained glass windows. Through his reluctance to obey God, he is swallowed up by the "big fish". He spent three days in his stomach and finally vomited on dry land where he went about God's business. Jonah is thus seen as presaging Jesus, who died of the crucifixion, spent part of three days in a tomb and was resurrected on the third day. So, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Jonah, with the "big fish" next to him and his eyes turned toward the Creator God, representing the "sign" of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. The figure of Jonah placed just above the altar activates the Passion motif. "When the Perugino altar painting was removed and... Fresco's Last Judgment came to cover the altar wall", after at least twenty-five years Michelangelo described Christ just under Jonah: not just because of his role as the predecessor of Christ , Christianity, and Christocentrism, but also because of the torque of his powerful body, bending back from the statue to the eye and with his forefinger which now denotes the noble Jesus to the character of the ceiling, assumes the function of the relationship between the Old and the New Testament.

In Vasari's account of the Prophets and Sibyl, he is very high in his praise of Isaiah's portrayal: "Whoever studies this figure, who has been so faithfully copied from nature, the true mother of painting, will find a very beautiful work capable of teaching in size full of precepts to be followed by good painters. "

Sibyls

The Sibyls are prophetic women living in temples or shrines throughout the Classic World. The fifth described here each is said to have prophesied the birth of Christ. The Cumaean Sibyl, for example, was quoted by Virgil in the Fourth Eclogue as stating that "the new offspring of Heaven" would bring the return of the "Golden Age". It is interpreted as referring to Jesus.

In Christian doctrine, Christ came not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. It is understood that, before the Birth of Christ, God prepared the world for his coming. For this purpose, God uses Jews and Gentiles alike. Jesus would not have been born in Bethlehem (where it had been prophesied that his birth would occur), except for the fact that the Roman Emperor Gentile Augustus decided that there should be a census. Likewise, when Jesus was born, the announcement of his birth was made for the rich and the poor, for the mighty and humble, for the Jews and the Gentiles. The Three Wise Men ("Magi" in the Bible) who are looking for a baby King with a precious gift are strangers who disbelieve.

In the Roman Catholic Church, where there is an increasing interest in the remnants of the pagan past of the city, where scholars move away from reading the Medieval Church of Latin to Classical Latin and Classical world philosophy studied along with St. Augustine's writings, Presence, in The Sistine Chapel of five pagan prophets is not surprising.

It is unknown why Michelangelo chose the five particular Sibyl described, given that, as with the Little Prophets, there are ten or twelve possibilities. It was suggested by John O'Malley that the choices were made for wide geographical coverage, with Sibyls originating from Africa, Asia, Greece and Iononia.

Vasari says of Erythraean Sibyl "Many aspects of this figure are extraordinarily beautiful: the expression on his face, his head decoration and his drape arrangement: and his arms, which are on display, as beautiful as others."

Pendentives

In each corner of the chapel is a triangular pending that fills the space between the walls and the arches of the dome and forms a spandrel above the windows closest to the corners. In this curved form Michelangelo has painted four scenes from Bible stories related to the salvation of Israel by four great heroes of Jewish men and women: Moses, Esther, David, and Judith.

• The Brazen Serpent
• Haman's punishment
• David and Goliath
• Judith and Holofernes

The first two stories are equally seen in medieval and Renaissance theology as a refinement of the Crucifixion of Jesus. In the story of Brazen Serpent, the Israelites became dissatisfied and grumbled at God. As punishment, they receive epidemic of venous snakes. The Lord offered the people's help by instructing Moses to make a snake from a brass and to place it on a pole, a scene that gave miraculous healings. Michelangelo chose the overcrowded composition, which depicted a large number of suffering men, women, and snakes, separate from the serpents redeemed by snakes before epiphytic light.

In the Book of Esther mentioned that Haman, a civil servant, planned to get the husband of Esther, the Persian king, to kill all the Jews in his land. The King, who examined his books during the sleepless nights, realized something was wrong. Esther, finding the plot, denouncing Haman, and her husband ordered her execution on the scaffold she had built. The eunuchs of the King immediately carried this out. Michelangelo shows Haman crucified with Esther who looks at him from the doorway, the King gives command in the background.

Two other stories, the work of David and Judith, are often associated in Renaissance art, especially by Florentine artists when they demonstrate the overthrow of tyranny, a popular subject in the Republic. In this picture, the shepherd boy, David, has dropped the towering Goliath with his arms, but the giant lives and is trying to get up when David forces his head to cut it.

The portrayals of Judith and Holofernes have the same terrible details. When Judith loaded the enemy's head into the basket carried by his servant and covered him with a cloth, he looked at the tent, seemingly disturbed by limbs from the beheaded beheaded.

There is a clear connection in the design of the Holofernes Massacre and the Haman Massacre at the end of the chapel. Although the Holofernes picture is smaller in size and less space is filled, they have triangular spaces divided into two zones by vertical walls, allowing us to see what happens on both sides. Actually there are three scenes in Haman's picture because also see Haman punished, we see him at the table with Esther and King and get the King's view on his bed. Mordechai sat on the steps, making connections between scenes.

While Slaying of Goliath is a relatively simple composition with two centrally placed protagonists and the only other visible figure observer, the image of Brazen Serpent is full of numbers and separated. Incidents as various individuals who have been attacked by snakes struggle and die or turn towards icons that will save them. This is the earliest composition of Mannerist Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, taking the theme of human suffering beginning in the Great Flood scene and bringing it forward to the torment of the lost soul in the Last Judgment, which is then painted below this.

Christ's Patriarch

Subject

Among the big landers supporting the vault were the windows, six on each side of the chapel. There are two more windows at each end of the chapel, now closed, and those above the High Altar are covered by the Last Judgment. Above each window is a curved shape, called a lunette and above eight lunettes on the side of the triangle chapel spandrels filling the space between the pendentives and dome sides, the other eight lunettes each under one of the incentives.

Michelangelo was commissioned to paint these areas as part of the work on the ceiling. These structures form visual bridges between walls and ceilings, and the figures painted on it are of medium size (about 2 meters) between the very great prophets and the much smaller Pope's who have painted on both sides. every window in the 15th century. Michelangelo chose the Patriarch of Christ as the subject of these images, thus portraying the lineage of Jesus, while the portrait of the papacy is his spiritual successor, according to the teachings of the Church. (see gallery )

Centrally placed above each window is a faux marble tablet with a decorative frame. In each painted the names of the male lines with which Jesus, through his earthly father, Joseph, are descendants of Abraham, according to the Gospel of Matthew. However, the genealogy is now incomplete, as two window shutters on the wall of the Altar were destroyed by Michelangelo when he returned to the Sistine Chapel in 1537 to paint The Last Judgment. Only carvings, based on images that have been lost, left over from them. The order of the tablet seems a little uncertain because one placard has four names, most have three or two, and two placards have only one. In addition, development moves from one side of the building to the other, but is inconsistent, and the numbers contained in the lunettes do not coincide closely with the names listed. These figures vaguely indicate various family relationships; most lunettes contain one or more babies, and many depict a man and a woman, often sitting on the opposite side of a painted plaque separating them. O'Malley describes them as "representative figures, almost ciphers".

There is also an indeterminate relationship between the numbers in spandrels and lunettes below them. Because of the triangle shape constraints, in each spandrel, the figures sit on the ground. In six of the eight spandrels the composition resembles the traditional depiction of Aviation into Egypt. Of the two remaining, one shows a woman with a scissor cutting the garment neck she made when her toddler was spotted. The Bible lady who was recorded as making new clothes for her son was Hannah, the mother of Samuel, whose son went to live in the temple, and indeed, the figure of a man in the background wearing a distinctive hat might indicate that a priest. Another figure different from the others is a young woman who sat staring out of the picture with the intensity of prophethood. Her open eyes have been covered in restoration.

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Treatment

Michelangelo's portrayal of the Genealogy of Jesus departs from an artistic tradition for this topic which was common in medieval times, especially in stained glass windows. The tree called Jesse Tree shows Jesse lying prone and trees growing from his side with his ancestors in every branch, in the visual care of the biblical verse.

The numbers in the lunettes appear to be family, but in each case they are a divided family. The numbers inside are physically divided by name tablets but they are also shared by the various human emotions that turn them out or on themselves and sometimes head to their partners with jealousy, suspicion, anger or just boredom. In it, Michelangelo has described the anger and unhappiness of the human condition, painting "the daily round of domestic life as if it were a curse". In their limited niches, the ancestors "sit, squat and wait". Of the fourteen lunettes, the first two probably painted, the Eleazar and Mathan and Jacob and Joseph families are the most detailed. They became wider toward the end of the altar, one of the latter painted in just two days.

Images of Eleazar and Mathan contain two figures with very rich costume details that are not in the other lunette. The woman on the left had carefully taken her clothes as one of the Sibyls. Her skirt reveals a linen and garter skirt that holds purple stockings and cuts the meat. She has a lady's bag and her dress is bordered under her arm. On the other side of the tablet sits the only male figure among them in the lunettes are intrinsically beautiful. This blond young man, dressed elegantly in a white shirt and a pale green hose, with no jerky but red robes, a bland and useless posture, unlike Ignudi very much like him.

Before the restoration, of all the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the lunettes and spandrels were the dirtiest. In addition, there is always the problem of daytime view of the panels closest to the window due to halinity . As a result, they are the most unknown of all Michelangelo's publicly accessible works. The recent recovery has made wonderful studies of human nature and the inventive depiction of the known human form once again.

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Ignudi

(For images, see gallery )

The Ignudi is the 20 athletic, nude man who Michelangelo painted as a supporting figure in every corner of five small narrative scenes that runs along the center of the ceiling. The pictures are held or wrapped or rested on various objects including pink ribbons, green rolls, and very large seeds.

The Ignudi , though all sitting, is less physically restricted than the Patriarch of Christ. While the monochrome male and female couples on the spandrels are mirrors of each other, these are different. In the earliest paintings, they are paired, their poses are similar but with variations. This variation becomes larger with each pair until the last four postures have nothing to do with each other.

The meaning of these numbers is never clear. They certainly fit the acceptance of Humanism against the classical Greek view that "man is the measure of all things". But Michelangelo knows the Bible well. He will be well aware of the fact that although seraphim and cherubim are described as winged creatures, they are described as men. When Michelangelo then painted the altar wall of the chapel, he entered a large number of angels, especially in lunettes decorated with angel scenes carrying the Passion symbol. Other angels used to chew trumpets calling the dead, showing the books where the names of the saved and the damned are written and throwing sinners to Hell. Overall, the Last Judgment contains more than forty angels, all of whom are very similar to Ignudi . It makes sense to conclude that Ignudi represents angels. If Ignudi are truly angels, they are ever-present servants and messengers of God, without the expression of watching and waiting for the fate of mankind.

Their paintings show, more than any other figures on the ceiling, the mastery of Michelangelo's anatomy and foreshortening and the enormous power of his invention. In their reflections on classical times, they resonate with Pope Julius's aspirations to lead Italy to a new 'golden age'; at the same time, they risked Michelangelo's claim on greatness. However, a number of critics are angry with their presence and nudity, including Pope Adrian VI who wants the ceiling stripped.

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Analysis of style and artistic legacy

Michelangelo is the artistic heir of the great 15th century sculptor and painter from Florence. He studied his wares first under the direction of the great fresco painter, Domenico Ghirlandaio, known for two great fresco cycles in the Sassetti Chapel and the Tornabuoni Chapel, and for his contribution to the painting cycle on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. As a student Michelangelo learns and draws from the works of two famous Florentine fresco painter from the beginning of the Renaissance, Giotto and Masaccio. Masaccio figures about Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden had a profound effect on the nude depiction generally, and in particular the use of a naked figure to convey human emotions. Helen Gardner says that in the hands of Michelangelo "the body is merely a manifestation of the soul, or state of mind and character".

Michelangelo is also almost certainly influenced by the paintings of Luca Signorelli whose paintings, especially the Death and the Resurrection Cycle in the Orvieto Cathedral contain a large number of naked and inventive figurative compositions. In Bologna, Michelangelo saw the relics of Jacopo della Quercia around the cathedral doors. In Michelangelo's description of the Creation of Eve the whole composition, the relatively conservative form of figures and concepts of the relationship between Eve and its Creator is firmly attached to Jacopo's design. The other panels on the ceiling, most specifically the Adam Creation icon show "... an unprecedented discovery".

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has a profound effect on other artists, even before it is completed. Vasari, in his Life of Raphael, tells us that Bramante, who had the key of the chapel, allowed Raphael to examine the paintings in the absence of Michelangelo. When he saw the prophets of Michelangelo, Raphael returned to the image of the prophet Isaiah that he was painting in a column in the Church of Sant'Agostino and, according to Vasari, even though it was finished, he eroded it from the wall and repainted a much stronger way, imitating Michelangelo. John O'Malley points out that even earlier than Isaiah was Raphael's entry of Heraclitus in the School of Athens , a reflective figure similar to Michelangelo Jeremiah, but with a countenace from Michelangelo himself, and leaning on a marble beam.

Almost no design elements in the ceiling are not imitated next: fictitious architecture, muscle anatomy, foreshortening, dynamic motion, luminous coloring, haunting expression of figures in lunettes, number of puttis. Gabriele Bartz and Eberhard KÃÆ'¶nig once said about Ignudi , "There is no image that has a more lasting effect on the next generation than this.Therefore, such figures make themselves in the work decorative ones, whether painted, formed with stucco or even carved. "

In Michelangelo's own work, the chapel ceiling leads to the later Manneris and more of the Last Judgment in which the overcrowded compositions provide full mastery of his creativity in the wrinkled paintings and the displayed figures that express despair or joy. Among the artists whose work can be seen the direct influence of Michelangelo is Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, Tintoretto, Annibale Carracci, Paolo Veronese, and El Greco.

In January 2007, it claimed that as many as 10,000 visitors passed through the Vatican Museum in a day and that the Sistine Chapel ceiling was the biggest attraction. The Vatican, alarmed by the possibility that the newly restored fresco will be damaged, announces plans to cut down on visiting hours and raise prices in an attempt to prevent visitors.

Five hundred years earlier, Vasari said, "The whole world came when the vault was revealed, and the sight was enough to drown them to their astonishment."

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Recovery

The paintings of the Sistine Chapel's frescoes were restored between June 1980 and December 1999, with an initial test conducted in 1979.

The first phase of restoration, work on the Michelangelo lunettes, was reached in October 1984. The work then continued to the ceiling, completed in December 1989 and from there until the Last Judgment. The restoration was inaugurated by Pope John Paul II on April 8, 1994. The recovery team consists of Gianluigi Colalucci, Maurizio Rossi, Piergiorgio Bonetti, Bruno Baratti and others. The last stage is the restoration of the fresco walls by Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others, it was inaugurated on December 11, 1999.

The color, which now looks so fresh and springlike with pale pink, apple green, bright yellow and sky blue with a warm pearly gray background, so faded from the waxy smoke that the image looks almost monochrome. Recovery has removed the dirt filter to reveal the color again. However, the recovery was greeted with praise and criticism. Critics assert that many original works by Michelangelo - especially pentimenti, spotlight and shadow, and other details painted secco - are lost in the removal of accents.

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Quote

Vasari

"This work has proven to be a beacon for our art, an invaluable benefit to all painters, returning light to a world that has for centuries fallen into darkness." Actually, painters no longer need to find new discoveries , new attitudes, dress figures, fresh expression, different settings, or noble subjects, for this work contains every possible perfection under that heading. "

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

"Without seeing the Sistine Chapel, one can not form meaningful ideas about what a person can accomplish."

Waldemar Januszczak Television art critic and producer Waldemar Januszczak writes that when the Sistine Chapel ceiling was recently cleaned up, he "was able to persuade the people in the Vatican responsible for Japanese TV access to let me climb the temporary scaffolding cleaning is in progress. "

"I sneaked up there a few times, and under the bright, unforgiving light of television, I could meet the real Michelangelo, I was so close to him I could see the bristles in his brush. paint, and dirty fingerprints that he left on the edges.The first thing that impressed me was his speed Michelangelo worked at the speed of Schumacher, the famous little Adam's penis was caught with a brush strokes: the wrists and the first man had his masculinity. also enjoying his sense of humor, which, in close proximity, turns into a refreshing childish. If you look closely at an angel attending a scary prophetess on the Sistine ceiling known as Cumaean Sibyl, you will see that one of them has pinched the mother his fingers between his fingers in an obscene mysterious movement seen by the fans who visited today i Italian football match. "

Gabriele Bartz and Eberhard KÃÆ'¶nig

"In a world where all experience is based on the glorious past of antique glory, he makes a new beginning. Michelangelo, even more than Raphael or Leonardo, embodies the standards of artistic genius that reveal radically changed images, human and their potential... "

Source of the article : Wikipedia