The Decoration Of The Sistine Chapel

The story behind the timeless Renaissance revealed.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Art - History of Art, grade: 1,7, University of Essex (Art History), course: The High Renaissance in Italy, language: English, abstract: In 1508 Michelangelo began with his working on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he completed it four years later. His frescoes show stories of the Old Testament about creation and fall of humankind and give an anticipation of salvation through Christ. Michelangelo at first did not want to paint the ceiling because he saw himself as sculptor and thought of the commission as trap of his rivals. Moreover, it was unusual for ceiling frescoes to show narration, they were in general regarded as minor compared to walls. Michelangelo, undeniably, taught art history better, his artwork became a masterpiece of High Renaissance. This essay is going to examine Michelangelo’s concerns in decorating the ceiling, especially in regard to the representation of narration and how successful his attempts were.

Contains nearly three hundred photographs taken by Takashi Okamura showing the entire Ceiling, individual panels showing such scenes as the Creation of Adam and the Deluge, and details of prophets, sibyls, nudes, and other stunning figures.

Capturing all the glories of Michelangelo's masterpiece, this authoritative and readable study of Rome's most popular attraction offers the revelations of world-renowned historians and restorers deeply involved in restoring it. Over 300 full-color illustrations.

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Michelangelo's frescoes on the Vatican's Sistine Chapel ceiling are arguably one of the greatest masterpieces of western art. The text and color images in this volume together explore central themes concerning this extraordinary fresco style, bringing information into focus for the general reader and for the tens of thousands of people who visit this masterpiece yearly. 36 color plates.

Some decades before Michelangelo began work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, such masters as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Signorelli were called to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the walls. By 1483, these painters had completed two monumental fresco cycles illustrating the lives of Moses and Christ - works of complex, and sometimes puzzling, iconography. Carol F. Lewine shows that many long-standing questions posed by these Renaissance masterpieces can be resolved by systematic investigation of their undoubted links with the Roman liturgy. Her reconstruction of the scheme by which liturgical themes of the weeks between Christmas and Ascension Thursday are mirrored in the subjects of these frescoes has revealed, unexpectedly, that within this program the primary emphasis is on the liturgy of Lent, often on the Lenten liturgy of the early church, and on such Lenten themes as baptism and penitence. The discovery that these frescoes also refer to the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, another ancient Lenten theme, suggests that Sixtus IV created the papal chapel that bears his name in order to commemorate the return of the popes from their "Babylonian Captivity" at Avignon. This exile ended in 1377, approximately one hundred years before Sixtus began to plan the major artistic enterprise of his pontificate. Lewine's approach to the interpretation of visual images in terms of their liturgical significance is in itself important and her argument, grounded in close visual inspection of the paintings, is ingenious and provocative. Her analyses of the interactions among narrative and symbol, text and image, form and meaning, offer stimulating contributions to quattrocento studies and encourage further consideration of all the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, together, as parts of an evolving ensemble.

Modeled on the highly successful Norton Critical Editions, this series offers illuminating introductions to major monuments of painting, sculpture, and architecture.