The Painting of the Sistine Chapel
The Painting of the Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel, located in the Vatican City, was painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti between 1508 and 1512, but the actual chapels construction was finished in 1480 under the supervision of Pope Sixtus IV. Michelangelo accepted the commission reluctantly knowing that painting a ceiling of over 5,000 square feet, and 60 feet in the air was a near impossible task and would require him to give up his love of sculpting.
Michelangelo started painting the chapel commisioned to paint only the twelve disciples on the ceiling. The final product yielded over 300 figures. The basic mindset that Michelangelo had while painting the ceiling was extravagance and perfection. The ceiling had originally been painted with a blue sky and gold stars. That was Michelangelos starting canvas. Michelangelo realized that he needed help with this project. No one could paint that big of an area by themselves (or so he thought). Once he rounded up a dozen or so up and coming artists he had to deal with the problem of finding a way to get 60 feet in the air. He hired a skilled architect to build a special scaffolding. The architects idea for the scaffolding was to hang it from the ceiling by four big heavy ropes. Michelangelo discarded this idea because it would put four large holes in his final work. He then drew the plans for the scaffolding himself. He had a set of zigzag stairs that led to the scaffolding which was supported from the sides of the chapel. This allowed him more room to work, and didnt interfere with the ceiling. The next step was to find a medium of paint to use on the chapel ceiling. He started painting the chapel by laying down a base of plaster then painting over it. Soon, he realized that the moisture in the walls caused mold to grow which then softened the plaster causing it to crumble. This was a dissapointing setback for Michelangelo, but his most trusted assistant, Jacopo LIndaco, developed a new plaster that would not retain moisture. This allowed the painting to continue. Soon after Michelangelo was back on track he realized that he could not trust any assistants to do the painting besides LIndaco. He locked the rest of his assistants out of the chapel and continued his painting at a much slower pace. This angered the Pope who was already becoming very impatient with Michelangelo. The two of them fought day and night about the painting. This fighting resulted in Michelangelo taking an “unannounced” leave of absence. The Pope then spent many resources to hunt down Michelangelo and force him to finish the ceiling. After many months of searching, Michelangelo returned on his own will to finish what he started. As the days went by Michelangelo made great progress, but also realized that his vision was slowly deteriorating. Before he could finish the ceiling he was hospitalized. One day the Pope came to visit him and ask if he was going to finish the ceiling. When Michelangelo said no, the Pope cleverly said, “then I will have Rafeal finish the ceiling for you, after all he has mastered your technique”. As soon as Michelangelo heard these words he jumped out of bed, and quickly finished the ceiling, and for once, he pleased the Pope.
As soon as Michelangelo heard that the popes idea for the ceiling was to just have the twelve Disciples on the ceiling, he knew he was going to have to use his imagination and come up with a amazing design worthy of the beautiful chapel. Michelangelo was a devout Christian and he had a great knowledge of the stories of the Bible. With this knowledge he selected some of the most interesting stories from the Bible and decided to interpret them into paintings. Here was his layout