The first impression of the Piazza San Pietro is crazy, a very touristy area and full of people trying to get you to buy trashy souveniers and people trying to get you to sign up for a tour, complete madness. The area is so overwhelming that the Vatican and St Peter's Basilica is almost the second thing you notice. A guide is a must.
Which brings me to the Sistine Chapel, what an amazing piece of art and I am so blessed to have actually had the chance to see it with my own eyes instead of merely through books.
I could not take any photo's of the ceiling as believe it or not, all photography is banned as the rights to the Chapel ceiling is owned by Fuji!!!! Yes that is right, Fuji paid for the restoration/clean of the Sistine Chapel in return for all photographic rights for 20 years. The only snap shot you can get of this ceiling is via a postcard sold for 1 euro. It may not seem like much but when 40,000 people a day can wander through the Vatican, I am sure that Fuji got their money's worth.
Here is a downloaded pic for you all to gaze and wonder and not ruin your neck in the process!!
Michaelangelo, who was not primarily a painter but a sculptor, was reluctant to take on the work but the Pope was adamant, leaving Michelangelo no choice but to accept. However Michelangelo negotiated for a grander, much more complex scheme and was finally permitted, in his own words, "to do as I liked". His scheme for the ceiling eventually comprised some three hundred figures and took four years to execute. Actually some have argued that he finished it in 3 years as he completed the first half of the ceiling in just 1 year and had to wait for a year before being able to commence the second half which he completed in 2 years.
He did all this work under duress, he wanted to finish this work quickly so he could begin sculpting again which was his true love. In fact he was disecting cadavers at the age of 14 of which the church was strongly against but Michaelangelo said that the Greek sculptors were doing this and he too needed to learn how the human bodies worked inside and out so that he could be the best scupltor in the world.
His first painting on the ceiling took him 6 months and he quickly realised that he would never finish plus this was too small for people to see clearly from down below so he started to put less detail in his work. Towards the second half of the ceiling he changed his style further and began to paint using two paintbrushes one in each hand and not put much detail on the background. Basically he just wanted to get the job done.
Years later Michaelangelo was dragged back to complete the final piece, called the Last Judgement.
This work is is massive and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. It is a depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse. The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ surrounded by his saints. Michaelangelo had to pay for all his paints up front during the painting of the Sistine Chapel, in those days the most expensive paint of all was blue, used by grinding down lapis to make the blue. As you can see there was not much blue used in the painting of the ceiling, mainly greys and greens. Once his was commissioned to paint the Last Judgement he chose to paint it almost entirely in blue as the Church was paying for all paints used. Lapis was very expensive and he used it with abundance.
The Last Judgment was an object of heavy dispute between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo, the artist was accused of immorality and intolerable obscenity, having depicted naked figures, with genitals in evidence, inside the most important church of christianity so a censorship campain was organised by Carafa to remove the frescoes. When the Pope's own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio de Cesena, said "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully," and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather "for the public baths and taverns," Michelangelo worked Cesena's face into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld (far bottom-right corner of the painting) with Donkey ears (i.e. indicating foolishness), while his nudity is covered by a coiled snake. It is said that when Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain. The genitalia in the fresco were covered 24 years later
Can you only imagine what this man could have created if he had done so with love and passion, he did not want to be a painter, scultping was his passion yet his legacy was the painting of the Sistine Chapel.
Truely Inspiring!!!
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