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M_onthly A_rt R_eview




It’s the beginning of 16th century Rome, and in this city, Michelangelo is putting a mark on history … with a little bit of a nudge from Pope Julius II. In today’s issue or project M.A.R. we shall be talking about a certain room and about a certain ceiling – and just what that has to do with the most universal and most prized artist of the Renaissance!






True, when you plan on talking about the Sistine Chapel, you must first know WHAT you want to talk about, because – as history has proven us – there are dozens of things to cover. The entire structure in its self is a work of art, a result of the hard work of some of the most brilliant minds of the Renaissance. Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and their respective workshops, which included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and Bartolomeo della Gatta … all of these people have had a helping hand in the creation of the chapel, and now I am talking about nothing more then the decorations, or how some will call them: finishing touches. In this month’s edition of MAR however, we will be talking about only a small part of it, more exactly, Michelangelo Buonarroti’s contribution to it.



In the year 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to repaint the vault, or ceiling, of the Chapel, which was – until then – a painting of yellow starts on a blue sky. Although a commission form the Pope was considered one of the greatest honors in life, especially since the artist had now the “right to sign their works”, Michelangelo was not jumping at the idea. You see, first and foremost, Michelangelo was a sculpture, and even if he was a skilled sketcher and an overall innovative artist, painting frescos was not quite his cup of tea.

Michelangelo was also intimidated by the scale of the commission, and made it known from the outset of Julius II's approach that he would prefer to decline. He was suspicious that such a large-scale project was being offered to him by enemies as a set-up for an inevitable fall, but after a lot of thinking, he taught of the commission as a distraction from his earlier projects, which at the time were all marble sculptures.

And you may never expect what a distraction that actually turned out to be, for you see, Michelangelo not only had to use his artistic talent to get it done, but also his architectural genius … just to reach the ceiling!

Michelangelo designed his own scaffold, a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall near the top of the windows, rather than being built up from the floor which would have involved a massive structure and would have meant that the chapel was unavailable for services. Mancinelli speculates that this was in order to cut the cost of timber. According to Michelangelo's pupil and biographer Ascanio Condivi, the brackets and frame which supported the steps and flooring were all put in place at the beginning of the work and a lightweight screen, possibly cloth, was suspended beneath them to catch plaster drips, dust and splashes of paint. Only half the building was scaffolded at a time and the platform was moved as the painting was done in stages. The areas of the wall covered by the scaffolding still appear as unpainted areas across the bottom of the lunettes, the holes being re-used to hold scaffolding in the latest restoration.

Now that reaching the surface of the “canvas” has been taken care of, Michelangelo was bound to face many more problems.

First of ‘em was – naturally, back end neck pain. Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted in a standing position, not lying on his back as most would have done. If you happen to be an artist, you can surly imagine what an uncomfortable position that must be.

Also, another problem was that Michelangelo had to work very fast, since lasting frescos are being painted while the surface of the wall is still wet. Thus, Michelangelo had to be both fast and precise in his work in order to avoid any correction after the surface was to dry up, correction that most certainly wouldn’t last in time.

And one can not even think of taking it apart and starting over!

You see, a fresco goes over a very detailed “before the paint” stage. First a rough underlayer called the arriccio is added to the whole area to be painted, and allowed it to dry for some days. Then comes the sketching of the compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia or terra rosa. Then comes a thinner, smooth layer of fine plaster, the intonaco, which is added to the amount of wall that can be expected to be completed in a day. This layer can be as a “canvas” by the artist for as long as it’s wet – around 12 hours – and it is advised to work in exactly that time in order to avoid the “going over” the painting for those colors couldn’t stick to the intonaco and wouldn’t last in time as the ones that were originally applied to the wet wall. That is why the artist must always know exactly how much he can do in a day. Michelangelo, for example, he was a very fast painter.

Also, Michelangelo had used some color tones that were new and hardly ever used before. Pale, earthly colors like ocher-yellow, earth-green, and innocent shades of San Giovanni White come in contrast with more violent, noble and perfect shades like sea blue, made all the elements clearly visible from the floor, as well as managed to introduce a drop of innocence in the whole work that simply keeps you glued to it all, making the viewer feel younger, hopeful and purer. And although I will not go into the details of how those colors were being made nor how were they actually applied (a wash technique to apply broad areas of color, then as the surface became drier, he revisited these areas with a more linear approach, adding shade and detail with a variety of brushes) – just to keep you from being bored – I will mention that Michelangelo's techniques show the skill that one would expect of Ghirlandaio's greatest pupil. He employed all the finest workshop methods and best innovations, combining them with a diversity of brushwork and breadth of skill far exceeding that of the meticulous Ghirlandaio.





Concerning the characters, the central scenes 9 episodes form Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and namely (in chronological order): The Separation of Light and Darkness, The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth, The Separation of Land and Water, The Creation of Adam, The Creation of Eve, The Temptation and Expulsion, The Sacrifice of Noah, The Great Flood, The Drunkenness of Noah, five of the nine scenes being represented in smaller frames then the others. These five are surrounded (or “decorated” with male nudes, the faimous Ignudi in dynamic postures and bronze medallions wich represent biblical scenes from the Book of Smuel and Book of Kings. Around these 9 scenes and the “decorations”, are seven Prophets (Jonah (IONAS) – above the altar, Jeremiah (HIEREMIAS, Ezekiel (EZECHIEL), Joel (IOEL), Zechariah (ZACHERIAS) – above the main door of the chapel, Isaiah (ESAIAS) and Daniel (DANIEL)) and five Sibyls (Persian (PERSICHA), Erythraean (ERITHRAEA), Delphic (DELPHICA), Cumaean (CVMAEA) and Libyan (LIBICA)), each sitting on a throne with angels holding up a tab held by angels. Also, on the veils and little arc openings Michelangelo had also painted the Ancestors of Christ by Abramo a Giuseppe and above the bronze nudes there are illustrated scenes from the Old Testaments such as The Brazen Serpent, The Punishment of Haman, David and Goliatm and Judith and Holofenes.

Still, we cannot leave this section of our review without first talking a little bit about the Creation of Adam.

Undoubtedly the most famous scene from the entire fresco, The Creation of Adam became over the decades one of this world’s most treasured and well-known iconic images, especially the part with the Hand of God giving life to Adam, scene only rivaled by Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. In this scene we all can clearly see the sculpture behind the painter. Michelangelo had clearly used his knowledge in sculpture and anatomy, the muscles of his characters being reproduced with crystal accuracy, the expressions holding more human emotion then most would expect, details that hold your gaze until you feel you can’t take it any more (details that although are absolutely everywhere are in the same time only in the places where they need to be – nothing more nothing else) and everything wrapped together into a unique moment of static movement.

In other words, we are talking about human Perfection.

Such a variety of characters from all stages of history … all combined in one single masterpiece that seems to summarize in a very odd way the very essence of human society. It is an odd piece of work if you take your time and think about it, and the characters have very little things in common, but all in all, Michelangelo managed to bring them all into a setting where nothing seems amiss, and where each element of his work exist in complete harmony with the other, as well as with the complexity of the vault with its quite a complex nature and which is unlikely to have been originally intended to have such complex decoration.



Yes. Situated 20 meters above the main floor of the chapel on a 40.5 meters long and 14 meters wide “canvas” lies a whole new world created by the genius that is Michelangelo, with more then 300 figures (painted in only four years!) to admire till the guards take you out of the room because you’re blocking the way for the other visitors.

Also, concerning these unusual characters for a time … well … Michelangelo and the Pope had a little disagreement on the matter.