“The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim to high and falling short, but in setting our aim to low, and achieving our mark.”
(Michelangelo Buonarroti)
Cappella Sistina is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in the Vatican City. Because of its architecture, which evokes the Temple of the Old Testament, its decoration, frescoed throughout by the greatest Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo, whose ceiling is legendary, the Sistine Chapel is famous in the whole world.
The subject matter of the ceiling is the doctrine of Humankind's need for Salvation as offered by God in Jesus through the Church. The ceiling illustrates that God made the World as a perfect creation and put Humankind into it. These fell into disgrace and was punished by death and by separation from God. God sent on the earth Prophets and Sybils to tell the humans that Jesus Christ would save them.
The Sistine Chapel had great symbolic meaning for the papacy and it is the most consecrated space in the Vatican. It is used for great ceremonies such as electing and inaugurating new popes.
Michelangelo filled the central spine of the long curved surface of the ceiling with nine scenes from Genesis: three of them depicting the creation of the world, three the stories of Adam and Eve, and three the stories of Noah.
The artist refused to show his work to anyone but the pope, though the latter was always insisting that he finish it quickly, and often climbed the scaffolding to see how the fresco was proceeding. The pressure on the artist was such that he uncovered it in August 1511, even before it was finished. The sight of these highly original paintings made a great impression on the artists of the time.
The project was physically and emotionally torturous for Michelangelo so that he recounts its effect on him with these words: "After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become."
Photo source
A.V.
