SISTINE CHAPPEL CEILLING BY MICHELANGELO(1475-1564)

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by Guy Shaked

“I’ve already grown a goiter at this drudgery...
and the brush that is always above my face,
by dribbling down, makes it an ornate pavement...
Giovanni, from now on defend my dead painting, and my honor,
since I’m not in a good position, nor a painter.” [1]

In this sonetto caudato Michelangelo describes his resentment at working on the Sistine Chapel. He described himself as a sculptor who was forced to paint, not a painter.

His response to those who forced him to paint, perhaps led by Bramante, an advisor to the Pope [2], was to paint a sculpture gallery, which he may have preferred to make in stone for the Vatican. The figures, seated on stone chairs, like the figure of Moses that Michelangelo had made for Pope Julius’s tomb, would not have been too difficult to sculpt in marble. The prophets and sibyls of the Sistine Chapel are representations of statues of prophets and sibyls, and no Biblical scenes are depicted, as one would expect in a painting.

The sculpture gallery Michelangelo painted is quite similar to the Vatican's sculpture galleries, where one walks between rows of Greek and Roman statues on pedestals set along the walls on both sides.

The prophets on their seats display only minimal motion, since their contribution to mankind is their spoken word, written down as their teachings (as in the case of Moses).

In the wall niches between the painted marble statues are painted seated gnudi on columns with their backs turned to us.

The sculpture gallery Michelangelo painted on the ceiling sides surrounds the inner “ceiling” he made in the center of his painting, where he depicted episodes from Genesis and the creation of the world. These scenes (figures in mid-air, some wet with water, tree branches) could not be sculpted but only painted.

The opening scene of the ceiling depicts God, in mid-air like Michelangelo, but of course without supporting scaffolds, creating his own ultimate flesh-and-bone sculpture: Man.

Unlike the theme of the seated prophets, the theme of the ceiling paintings is action. God, according to Michelangelo, is creating Man with his touch rather than his word, as in the biblical account. Michelangelo, who substituted God’s words with his immediate action, displays the enormous difference between the seven days when God’s words operated and the time when the words of prophets and sibyls prevailed: human words are to be written down rather than translated into immediate action; they may materialize later or never.

This is indeed a critique of Pope Julius' treatment of Michelangelo’s work on his tomb, for the agreement between the two was initially kept but was later breached, because, Michelangelo believed, the agreement was made of human rather than divine words.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel