The ones closest to the dark clouds seem sleepy, while those on the other side are engaged in activity.
2. Adam, lying on the ground, reaches out his hand toward the divine being, wrapped in a pink drapery, until their fingers touch.
Sibyls and Prophets
This is the series of frescos decorating the pendentives, the hanging capitals between each sail.
It’s not so much a scene about the arc, but a story of desperation and the suffering of mankind.
Four distinct scenes are separated by air and water. But the ceiling paintings were his alone.
Little did Michelangelo know what turmoil awaited him with the project. He demanded complete creative control.
Michelangelo learned fresco painting on the job.
The succession of popes, starting from the third pope, Anacletus (76 – 88 AD), and reaching Marcellus I (308 – 309 AD), reflects a meditation on the continuity of the Church and the papacy, highlighting the connection between the popes and the apostolic tradition.
Technically, the papal portraits are inserted with great attention to architectural integration.
Michelangelo started at the entrance end and painted toward the altar. And a reminder that even the most righteous of mankind are flawed.
8. This depicts The Last Judgement – the second coming of Christ and the final judgement of humankind. One of the more detailed frescoes is ‘The Deluge’ which has four separate narratives but it is difficult to follow from the floor.
Like the lunettes below, they represent the forty generations of Christ’s ancestors, taken from the Gospel of Matthew.
They depict compositions of family groups, men and women representing humanity and the succession of generations. He’s shown as excessively youthful, buff, smoothly shaven, and floating on clouds.
He’s depicted more like Apollo than the suffering bearded savior one expects.
When surveying the frescoes you’ll notice that the sizes of the figures vary in size, and some are much smaller and far more detailed. He was 28 years old and had already carved his renowned David and Pieta. On the left, Judith and her handmaiden carry off the disembodied head.
12. The Fall and Expulsion
In this famous vignette, Adam and Eve sin and are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
But because it is adhesive, soot and grim stuck to the ceiling. God is seen here as a large powerful figure and you will see there is less detail here than the earlier images.
The Last Judgement: Michelangelo's Final Masterpiece
Michelangelo returned in 1537 to paint a final Sistine Chapel fresco on the altar wall that took four years to complete.
Another theory is that the artist did not want competing artists to use the preparatory sketches for study purposes (notably, two young sculptors stole 60 preliminary drawings from his workshop in Florence, which were later returned).
Only two preliminary drawings have survived.
The first shows one of the twelve apostles above the pendentives (where today we find the prophets).
He was the same artist who created the David, Moses, the Pietà, and the Dome of St. Peter’s.
Preliminary Drawings
While the Florentine master Piero di Jacopo Rosselli prepared the surfaces of the dome, Michelangelo spent the first few months creating preliminary drawings. His gesticulating hands seem to bless what he has created.
4.
Creation of Eve
This scene is in the exact center of the ceiling. It took him 5 years to complete the powerful fresco.
Be forewarned, if you’re there in the summer, there’s no air conditioning and it can feel suffocating.
You cannot take photos or talk in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had witnessed its excavation in Rome in 1506.
The most celebrated of the Ignudi (shown above) is in an extreme contrapposto (counterpoise) position.