The Vault

Michelangelo · 1508 to 1512

Rome. 1508.

Pope Julius II wants the vault painted.

The plan: twelve Apostles.

Michelangelo told the Pope it would look poor.

Why? The Apostles were poor too, he said.

So the plan changed.

Nine scenes from Genesis.

Prophets and sibyls down the sides.

Twelve figures were the plan. He painted more than 300.

Two fingers. A gap between them.

He didn't paint it lying down.

He stood. Head back. Arm up.

Four years.

One vault.

Uncropped.

“Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.”

Michelangelo, sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoia on painting the ceiling, c. 1509 (trans. J. A. Symonds, 1878)

1980 to 1994

Restorers clean the chapel's frescoes.

Centuries of candle smoke come off.

Colours nobody had seen in centuries return.

Critics said they took too much.

The argument hasn't ended.

Michelangelo

Italian · High Renaissance · 1475 to 1564

Sources · 6

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