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These forums are being phased out. The new, improved Michelangelo Forum is at classicalmusicforums.com.
Posted by Peter on June 02, 19103 at 13:13:36:
In Reply to: The Design of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling posted by Lauren on March 12, 19103 at 21:52:25:
<11:28, 29, 31, 32> Sistine Ceiling
Title: Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Period: 1508-13 Vatican Rome, Italy (High Renaissance)
Artist: Michelangelo
Material: Fresco, 45 by 128 (feet) or 13.7 by 39 (metres)
Subject:
Background and social history
- Built between 1475 and 1483, in the time of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere, the Sistine Chapel has originally served as Palatine Chapel. The chapel is rectangular in shape and measures 40.93 meters long by 13.41 meters wide, i.e. the exact dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament. It is 20.70 meters high and is roofed by a flattened barrel vault, with little side vaults over the centered windows.
- The architectural plans were made by Baccio Pontelli and the construction work was supervised by Giovannino de' Dolci. The first M in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on August 9, 1483.
- The wall paintings were executed by Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and their respective workshops, which included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and Bartolomeo della Gatta.
- Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to repaint the ceiling; the work was completed between 1508 and 1512. He painted the Last Judgement over the altar, between 1535 and 1541, being commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese.
- The vault, with its many curved surfaces, and presented an exceptionally difficult problem as a field of figurative paintings. Michelangelo’s solution was one of daring originality and painted the ceiling and upper walls in true fresco, almost single-handedly.
The artist
Michelangelo was the antithesis of the ideal courtier. Unsociable, mistrustful, moody, untify, obsessed with his work and almost pathologically proud, he was the archetype of the ‘man of genius’, a poet as well as a sculptor, painter and architect. At odds with himself and with the world, his introspective imagination revolutionized everything he touched.
Visual ysis
Although the initial impression of the ceiling is one of great complexity, the organization is simple. Within its great size and its astonishing complexity, the ceiling can be divided into four levels, two of which can be subdivided.
- The backbone of the ceiling is the series of paintings, alternating large and small, which run down the center. The series begins above the altar with "God Separating Light from Darkness" (the traditional title. It proceeds through the various stages of creation, the fall, the flood, and ends above the doorway with the Drunkenness of Noah.
- Flanking the small paintings and often overlapping the edges of the large ones, are twenty young men. They hold garlands of oak leaves (the emblem of the Pope's family, the delle Rovere) and ribbons from which hang painted medallions of selected Old Testament events.
- The next level is the most varied. Between the spandrels of the windows, there are alternating prophets and sibyls, accompanied by two child figures. Pairs of putti flank their thrones, in active poses but painted to look like sculptures. Flanking these putti are bronze-colored male figures in various poses and with no indication of identification or function.
- In the spandrels and lunettes around the windows are the ancestors of Christ, from the genealogy in Matthew. In the corner spandrels are four Old Testament scenes traditionally considered types of Christ or precursors of redemption.
- The painted architecture is so much a part of the interpretation of the ceiling that it deserves to be listed as though it were among the actors. Michelangelo has painted a cornice around all four sides of the ceiling, enclosing the painted scenes and the ignudi. These panels are separated by painted ribs, terminating at the cornice and apparently supported by resses that constitute the sides of the thrones of the prophets and the sibyls.
None of this is illusionistic in the sense that characterized later Baroque vault paintings. That is, there is never a sense that the vault opens up to a vision of a scene that lies beyond it. All is clearly on the surface of the vaulting. The vaulting sets up a series of ‘levels of reality’ that are important to the understanding of Michelangelo's achievement.
The ceiling has to be seen and understood both longitudinally and transversely. The histories provide the longitudinal axis; all the rest is designed to be seen from one side or the other. There is no single point of view. Each segment of the ceiling is seen from its own point of view and the spectator is required to move processionally through the Chapel to experience its successive unfolding. Unlike Baroque ceilings that are coherent from one point only, the visual reality of the ceiling's segments beyond the immediate field of vision is not violated. The parts beyond the spectator's place are progressively more foreshortened but not misshapen.
Just what i had to do for my Bachelor of Fine Arts 1st year.
ou could also try the Vatican museum wesite