The Sistine Chapel
Essay Preview: The Sistine Chapel
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The Sistine Chapel ceiling is perhaps the most amazing painting of all time. It was finished by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1512.(he started it in 1508.) He worked on the painting every day in the four year period. It was very difficult work. He would have to climb a scaffold and lay flat on his back 65 feet above the floor with paint dripping down on him. All of the scenes were based on stories of The Bible. The centerpiece, “The Creation Of Adam” shows God infusing life into Adam, the first man.
The triangular areas along the two long sides of the ceiling are called spandrels. The moldings which outline them are the only aspects of the architectural design of the Ceiling that are truly part of the architecture. The moldings were in the ceiling before Michelangelo began his project. All other architectural details on the ceiling were painted by Michelangelo. The figures painted inside the spandrels represent ancestors of Christ. (These figures are also continued into the lunettes below the Ceiling.) The prophets could be seen as mediating between the Old and New Testaments in a spiritual or prophetic way. The ancestors mediate between the two in a concrete or natural way.
Michelangelo was first assigned to paint the ceiling when he received a letter from the Pope. This letter reveals that the idea of completing the Chapel begun by Sixtus IV had been broached while Michelangelo was previously in Rome. Michelangelo told him that he didnt want to paint the Chapel doubting he had the ability to paint foreshortened figures. On May 10, 1508 Michelangelo contracted to paint the ceiling for 3,000 ducats and began work that very day.
The ceiling is divided into three zones, the highest showing scenes from Genesis. Below are prophets and sibyls. In the lunettes and spandrels are figures identified as ancestors of Jesus or the Virgin. His awesome Last Judgment is on the alter wall. The sequence of the Old Testament and New Testament scenes were arranged to emphasize the authority of the Pope. Between the windows above are painted images pre-Constantian sainted Popes. To left and right of the alter wall were the findings of Moses and the birth of Christ. Above them, on the level of the Popes was the beginning of the Papal series and in the center, possibly an image of Christ flanked by Peter and Paul. Michelangelo was first commissioned to paint the twelve apostles on the twelve pendentive-like areas. In place of the twelve Apostles who followed Christ, Michelangelo painted the Hebrew Prophets and pagan Sibyls who foresaw the coming of a Messiah. Here, for the first time in the Chapel, Greco-Roman culture is joined to the Hebrew world. These Prophets and Sibyls inhabit the curved lower part of the vault, sitting on thrones. By this method Michelangelo created an imaginary architecture: the bands across the vault are united by the cornice above with its projecting segments. The Prophets and Sibyls are clearly to be understood as sitting in front of the Ancestors of Christ, painted in the spandrels and lunettes.
These are pictorial versions of the mere list of names that begins the Gospel of Matthew, the generations linking Christ with the tribe of David, as was necessary according the Old Testament prophecy. Thus the Hebrew and pagan seers who foretold the coming of the Messiah alternate with representations of Christs own ancestors. This part of the vault is closely connected with the scenes below that show Christs life and work on earth as the counterpart and fulfillment of the prophetic example of Moses. Some of the scenes of Genesis are obviously related to Christian events, others