The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti
The Sistine Chapel
Jackmark
January 22, 2013
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni painted the interior of the Sistine Chapel over a period of 34 years. Michelangelo’s paintings are not only masterpieces of art. The paintings displayed Michelangelo’s relationship to the times and to God. He accomplished this through the content and the style of the paintings. Michelangelo transformed the whole look and the atmosphere of the chapel, while giving us his impressions and ‘’design’’ of God.
Michelangelo painted the …show more content…
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under the order of the newly elected Pope Julius II. In the beginning, Europe was entering the High Renaissance and confidence was high. Michelangelo designed the ceiling to tell nine stories from the Book of Genesis. The stories were divided into three trilogies; the Creation of the Universe, the Creation of Man and the Story of Noah (Fall of Man). He used very bright and powerful colours to make the paintings jump from the ceiling.
In the first trilogy Michelangelo depicts God’s limitless power by painting God in motion as he separates light from dark, creates the sun, the moon and the stars, and separates land from water. The second trilogy is painted in the very centre of the ceiling. When standing in the centre of the chapel, looking directly up, you will see the Creation of Man. God rests on a cloud that resembles a human brain. God is breathing life into the body of Adam with a single touch. It gives the viewer an intense appreciation of the power travelling from God to the fingertip of Adam. You can almost feel the spark between God and Adam. The third trilogy is the story of Noah and the eventual downfall of man.
There is also a transition of man from purity to sin. Michelangelo transitions God’s role from Creator and Father in the first trilogy to an all-knowing angry god who is beyond man’s eye, by the last trilogy. The viewers had to crane their necks to see the artwork, as they would to look to Heaven. The faithful would be held in wonder and awe by the power and the beauty of the art work and of God.
Michelangelo was said to resent these commissions, believing that is was just the Pope’s desire for grandeur. However, he was painting with enthusiasm and faith. After two years, speculation arose that he was slacking and concerned more about comfort than the completion of the Ceiling. Once Michelangelo heard of this news, he immediately drew multiple designs showing the excruciatingly uncomfortable positions he was painting in. The speculation immediately stopped.
The Final Judgement from the Book of Revelations was painted by Michelangelo 25 years after the Sistine Ceiling.
The tone of this second installment was much darker and more ominous. The trilogies were painted in the High Renaissance period and the Final Judgement was painted at the beginning of the Inquisition, a dark period in Europe’s history. Not only had the times changed but Michelangelo had become older and cynical.
The Final Judgment is one of Michelangelo’s largest paintings that he had ever done. It was painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Because of the placement of the Final Judgement, the viewer would see the powerful and angry look from Jesus. Jesus is judging the viewer. The wall was constructed on an angle so that no dust would fall on it, and to show that Jesus is looking down on you.
Jesus, in most minds, is depicted as a thin man but Michelangelo, in the Final Judgment, depicts him as muscular, powerful and angry. Even Mother Mary is looking away from her son Jesus. Unlike the panels on the ceiling of the chapel showing specific events in Biblical history, the Final Judgement shows a large event of huge proportions with many people, taking place in the future. It is a crowded painting and Michelangelo painted it in dark colours. Everything shows despair because so many are being damned to Hell and less to Heaven. Michelangelo symbolized this by depicting the book for Hell much larger than the book for …show more content…
Heaven.
Michelangelo was cynical and tired.
When a Cardinal criticized the Last Judgement, Michelangelo scraped off the face of his original Minos, one of the three judges of the underworld, and replaced it with the face of the Cardinal, giving him ass-ears and wrapped in a snake’s coil. The coils indicated to what circle of Hell the damned are destined. The serpent’s bite on the genitals of Minos illustrated Michelangelo’s disdain for the Cardinal. (It is said that when the Cardinal approached the Pope with his complaint, the Pope replied that his ‘’jurisdiction did not extend to Hell, and the portrait would have to
remain’’.)
Michelangelo made the first painting, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, bright and colourful for the Beginning and the Creation of the Universe and Man. He made the bright colours reflect a joyful vibe for the beginning of new life. It was Genesis. However, in the Final Judgement, Michelangelo made the colours very dark and frightening. The Final Judgement`s colours give off a very depressing vibe, including Jesus as the strong yet angry focal point. This was Revelations. Michelangelo used style and colour to emphasize the brightness and darkness of the first and last books of the Bible. His art reflected the souls of the viewer, whether they were righteous or would be damned. Michelangelo was the Tim Burton of the Renaissance. The effectiveness of this piece of artistic impression cannot be underestimated as it is painted in the most sacred Catholic chapel, and is viewed by millions annually, centuries after it was painted.
Jackmark
January 22, 2013
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni painted the interior of the Sistine Chapel over a period of 34 years. Michelangelo’s paintings are not only masterpieces of art. The paintings displayed Michelangelo’s relationship to the times and to God. He accomplished this through the content and the style of the paintings. Michelangelo transformed the whole look and the atmosphere of the chapel, while giving us his impressions and ‘’design’’ of God.
Michelangelo painted the …show more content…
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under the order of the newly elected Pope Julius II. In the beginning, Europe was entering the High Renaissance and confidence was high. Michelangelo designed the ceiling to tell nine stories from the Book of Genesis. The stories were divided into three trilogies; the Creation of the Universe, the Creation of Man and the Story of Noah (Fall of Man). He used very bright and powerful colours to make the paintings jump from the ceiling.
In the first trilogy Michelangelo depicts God’s limitless power by painting God in motion as he separates light from dark, creates the sun, the moon and the stars, and separates land from water. The second trilogy is painted in the very centre of the ceiling. When standing in the centre of the chapel, looking directly up, you will see the Creation of Man. God rests on a cloud that resembles a human brain. God is breathing life into the body of Adam with a single touch. It gives the viewer an intense appreciation of the power travelling from God to the fingertip of Adam. You can almost feel the spark between God and Adam. The third trilogy is the story of Noah and the eventual downfall of man.
There is also a transition of man from purity to sin. Michelangelo transitions God’s role from Creator and Father in the first trilogy to an all-knowing angry god who is beyond man’s eye, by the last trilogy. The viewers had to crane their necks to see the artwork, as they would to look to Heaven. The faithful would be held in wonder and awe by the power and the beauty of the art work and of God.
Michelangelo was said to resent these commissions, believing that is was just the Pope’s desire for grandeur. However, he was painting with enthusiasm and faith. After two years, speculation arose that he was slacking and concerned more about comfort than the completion of the Ceiling. Once Michelangelo heard of this news, he immediately drew multiple designs showing the excruciatingly uncomfortable positions he was painting in. The speculation immediately stopped.
The Final Judgement from the Book of Revelations was painted by Michelangelo 25 years after the Sistine Ceiling.
The tone of this second installment was much darker and more ominous. The trilogies were painted in the High Renaissance period and the Final Judgement was painted at the beginning of the Inquisition, a dark period in Europe’s history. Not only had the times changed but Michelangelo had become older and cynical.
The Final Judgment is one of Michelangelo’s largest paintings that he had ever done. It was painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Because of the placement of the Final Judgement, the viewer would see the powerful and angry look from Jesus. Jesus is judging the viewer. The wall was constructed on an angle so that no dust would fall on it, and to show that Jesus is looking down on you.
Jesus, in most minds, is depicted as a thin man but Michelangelo, in the Final Judgment, depicts him as muscular, powerful and angry. Even Mother Mary is looking away from her son Jesus. Unlike the panels on the ceiling of the chapel showing specific events in Biblical history, the Final Judgement shows a large event of huge proportions with many people, taking place in the future. It is a crowded painting and Michelangelo painted it in dark colours. Everything shows despair because so many are being damned to Hell and less to Heaven. Michelangelo symbolized this by depicting the book for Hell much larger than the book for …show more content…
Heaven.
Michelangelo was cynical and tired.
When a Cardinal criticized the Last Judgement, Michelangelo scraped off the face of his original Minos, one of the three judges of the underworld, and replaced it with the face of the Cardinal, giving him ass-ears and wrapped in a snake’s coil. The coils indicated to what circle of Hell the damned are destined. The serpent’s bite on the genitals of Minos illustrated Michelangelo’s disdain for the Cardinal. (It is said that when the Cardinal approached the Pope with his complaint, the Pope replied that his ‘’jurisdiction did not extend to Hell, and the portrait would have to
remain’’.)
Michelangelo made the first painting, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, bright and colourful for the Beginning and the Creation of the Universe and Man. He made the bright colours reflect a joyful vibe for the beginning of new life. It was Genesis. However, in the Final Judgement, Michelangelo made the colours very dark and frightening. The Final Judgement`s colours give off a very depressing vibe, including Jesus as the strong yet angry focal point. This was Revelations. Michelangelo used style and colour to emphasize the brightness and darkness of the first and last books of the Bible. His art reflected the souls of the viewer, whether they were righteous or would be damned. Michelangelo was the Tim Burton of the Renaissance. The effectiveness of this piece of artistic impression cannot be underestimated as it is painted in the most sacred Catholic chapel, and is viewed by millions annually, centuries after it was painted.