The Ceiling

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The Ceiling

It is because of Michelangelo's work that most visitors go to the Sistine Chapel. It is his work that rivets our attention to the exclusion of all others. Visiting St. Peter in Chains we shall see how Michelangelo had to interrupt the mausoleum of Julius II, and returned to Florence after a quarrel with the Pope. Later they were reconciled and he came back to Rome again in great favour by the Pope and hoping to complete the mausoleum. To his astonishiment the Pope commissioned him to paint the fresco decoration of this ceiling, which at that time was painted only with gold stars against a blue back ground. Michelangelo did all he could to evade the commission, protesting that he knew nothing of fresco painting but the Pope persisted and he had to yield. It is said that Bramante, the fellowtownsman of Raphael and a bitter rival of Michelangelo, persuaded Pope Julius II to let Micbelangelo paint the ceiling of the Chapel, in the belief that he would either refuse or fail as a painter. It was the competition which caused him to paint in the Sistine Chapel.

sistine chapel ceiling The Pope only wanted Michelangelo to paint the twelve Apostles in the lunettes and a decorative design on the ceiling; but Michelangelo proposed then to paint the whole ceiling and Julius II gave his assent. He started painting on May 10th 1508, and it took him four years to complete this titanic work, four years of indescribable fatigue and of stormy relations with the Pope. One day, tired of waiting for the work to be finished, at a rude reply from Michelangelo, Julius II struck him with his stick, after which the artist rushed home to prepare to leave for Florence, but the Pope sent his apologies and two hundred ducats, which Michelangelo accepted. On All Saints Day 1512 the paintings were uncovered, eliciting a universal chorus of praise. Three and a half months later Pope Julius II died. Michelangelo then went back to Florence. The scenes Michelangelo painted on the ceiling are framed by the painted cornices; he painted first and architectural structure, and divided the ceiling in its length into three bands; in the central one he depicted Genesis, from the Separation of Light from Darkness to the Drunkness of Noah: all around, above the side walls in the triangular spaces and in the lunettes, are the ancestors of Christ, David's line; alternately on the spandrels between them are prophets and sibyls. In the triangular spaces in the corners of the Chapel are the four miraculous salvations of the Hebrews: David and Goliath, Judith and Holophernes, the Crucifixion of Amman and the Brazen Serpent.

sistine chapel ceiling Already at the first glimpse of this tremendous vision the visitor realizes that Michelangelo in this chapel achieved something more than human. He will also realize that the innumerable descriptions and the much picturing are not enough to prepare one for the impact which it makes, and, to be frank, we may at the first feel a sense of disconcert. The time we spend in the Sistine Chapel is much too short, it will be difficult to immediately find the key to the understanding of Michelangelo's spirit and certainly many people left the Chapel wondering what really determines the importance of these paintings, why more has been written on them than possibly any other work of art in the world.

In order not to leave the chapel asking ourselves the same questions, we must try to see these works in perspective with their age and consider something which everyone can see: the striking contrast between the paintings of the side walls and the ones by Michelangelo. It is this difference of two totally different strains of thought, produced by the same epoch, which provides a ready access to the artistic history of the Chapel and the key to the understanding of Michelangelo's spirit.

sistine chapel ceiling The paintings on the side walls hark back to the mediaeval concepts of life; they are still based on the mystical relationship which lay at the foundation of mediaeval life; they are still bound by the moral ideals involved in ascetism, scholasticism and the poverty of the Creature. Although at the end of XV century, the intellectual Activity, the revival of art and culture, the rediscovery of ancient philosophies, the scientific and geographical discoveries (the discovery of America), the invention of the press and so forth, had opened new ways for human development, (it was in the XV century that the world started moving faster), artists of the calibre of Botticelli and Perugino, when commissioned a painting by the Church were given a detailed description of the painting required; they would not dare to add anything of their own invention and they worked on a severe scheme (hard to recognise the Botticelli we know from Florence paintings: The Birth of Venus and The Spring). The result is that to the layman the side wall paintings look more or less alike. The figures depicted by Michelangelo were inspired by the dignity of man, by Plato's philosphy (the perfect man in the perfect state), he broke thorough the bonds of mediaeval traditionalism, his human figures are perfect in their anatomy, strongly built and express intelligence; they are freed from their heavy mantles, as they are freed from mediaeval presuppositions and in them we finally see freedom of creation. (Michelangelo's two greatest loves were sculpture and freedom). In his figures Michelangelo represented the precious gifts God gave Man, showing another dimension of the human race with the awareness of the possibilities and the abilities Man has to build his own world, to build his own future. Let us put it into modern language: Man who was to walk on the Moon



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