Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Chapter 19-- Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel


      Just to give us some perspective, there were many great artists of the Renaissance both in Italy and throughout Europe, but the three geniuses were in Italy about the same time, all working and living around Florence and Rome.
      They were: Leonardo da Vinci, 1452—1519; Michelangelo Buonarrotti, 1475—1564; and Raphael or Raffaello Sanzio, 1483—1520.
Sorry, but Leonardo did not paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel while on his back as portrayed by Charlton Heston in the movie. But he did reported bad neck pains from constantly bending back and looking up, and frequent paint drippings into his eyes, and constant growling at his assistants who mixed his water-based paints and his plaster.. History reports Michelangelo had a gruff and grating personality and let's just say, a less than handsome face.
     Our trip into the Sistine Chapel was at the end of the Vatican Museum tour. We were constantly reminded that the room was a chapel, and that taking photos and talking were not permitted.
Upon entering the chapel, the first thing you notice is that everyone is taking pictures and talking. The din is overwhelming.
     Guards constantly clap for quiet. Guards are ignored.
      With all these people in the chapel, it's really difficult to appreciate this wonder of the world. Like Michelangelo, you are constantly craning your neck, looking up at the ceiling, 60 feet above your feet. Luckily, no paint drips on you from the ceiling.
      You can get a better view of the chapel by Googling it, clicking on “virtual view” and being able to guide yourself all through the chapel at every angle. It's amazing.
In the chapel, looking up, you see the story of Creation, the famous portion of the ceiling where God creates Adam, the near touching of the fingers. The main panels are the scenes from the Book of Genesis, from Creation to the Fall, to shortly after Noah's deluge.
      The adjacent sides are portraits of prefects and sibyls who foretold the coming of the Messiah. Along the bottom run spandrels and lunettes of ancestors of Jesus and stories of ancient Israel. Scattered throughout are cherubs and nudes.
      The ceiling is 131 feet by 43 feet, there are 300 painted figures on the ceiling in 5000 square feet of frescoes. It took Michelangelo from 1508 to 1512 to complete. While all this was going on, Catholic Mass continued to be held below.
      Michelangelo was trained as a sculpture, had little training in painting itself, and less skills in the art of frescoes -- painting on walls within and upon fresh plaster. He also had to learn to deal with perspectives, because the ceiling was not flat, but curved. Only true masters were able to paint figures on curved surfaces.
      You will also see the architectural moldings on the ceiling, separating the panels. They too are paintings. Michelangelo also allowed some of his assistants to paint small figures and backgrounds and landscapes.
      From 1534 to 1541, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel to create the Last Judgement. The fresco is on the wall above the altar of the chapel, and it is the last artwork you see as you leave.
      The figures here are different, terrifying and ugly, as compared to the heroic creation figures on the ceiling.
      This is the artist's imaginative vision of the Second Coming of Christ, here to send the sinners to hell and the devout to heaven, Christ the judge, deciding the destiny of the human race. He condemns large portions of humanity art to hell. The action is so fierce, that the Madonna at his side seems to cower at the scene.
      The Archangel Michael reads from a small book of souls of those who are to be saved, where at right, there is a larger book of lists of the damned
      The boatman appears in this judgement, who also appears in Roman and Greek mythology who ferries the damned into hell. The boatman also is part of Dante's Devine Comedy and Virgil's Eneid, both part of Michelangelo's interpretation.
      St. Peter holds silver and gold keys to heaven, though the portrait is not St. Peter, but the likeness of Pope Paul III who commission the work from Michelangelo.
Why naked figures?
      It was called Mannerism, a distortion of figures to make them more expressive and show movement. The figures were classic gods and goddesses, who wore no clothes. You see great battles where men fight out of uniform, so to speak, no clothing to hide weapons, only strict heroic acts in dramatic poses.
      A Cardinal, Baigio Cesena, was highly critical of the painting showing nude figures in a sacred place such as the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted the complaining cardinal into the picture, showing him as Minos one of the three mythological judges of the underworld. Michelangelo also showed his disdain for the cardinal by having a snake bite his genitals.
      When the cardinal complained to the pope, the pope told him he had no jurisdiction over hell, and the portrait would remain.

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo above the nave in the Sistine Chapel.
The boatman of Greek and Roman mythology, sending the damned to hell.
Christ judges who goes to hell, on his left, and who goes to heaven, on his right, from the book of lists.  The Last Judgement, The Sistine Chapel.
Cardinal Baigio Cesena depicted as Minos in the Last Judgement. The Cardinal criticized   Michelangelo for all the nude figures, saying the painting belonged in a tavern instead in a holy chapel.

The Sistine Chapel and Last Judgement

Centerpiece of Sistine Chapel -- God creates Adam
The Sistine Chapel, as viewed from 60 feet below.

Friday, September 07, 2012

Morning duty at St. Peters Basilica, a "sampietrini" fills baptismal font with holy water.

Inside the Vatican Museum, the Braccio Nuovo wing
Chapter 17—Vatican Museum


The Vatican Museums and Galleries

In 1506, the popes began collecting antiquities, placing them on public display, which eventually would become the beginnings of the Vatican Museums.
The museums are part of Vatican City, adjacent to St. Peter's Basilica, in fact, the end of the tour is the Sistine Chapel which exits exit through the Basilica.
We were there in June. Bad timing. So was everybody else.
Crowded is not the word. Jammed comes close.
We had our tickets well in advance, purchasing them on the internet before leaving home, then also arranging for a tour guide, in advance too over the internet.
Our tour guide was a young lady who held an enormous amount of information in her memory banks on the details of just about every item in the galleries. We had a tour group of about 15, and we all were given a headset before entering the museum. Our guide had a headset too, but she also had a microphone with which to communicate with us.
Good thing. The crowds were so enormous and so noisy, that if she were to speak normally without the headphones, she could not have been heard.
The museums are guided along two long halls with gallery designated rooms. Some of the rooms are former apartments of former popes, elaborately decorated from floor to over the ceilings.
We were there in 2011, and it was also a year of record attendance, more than 5 million. It seemed like they all showed up on the same afternoon we were there.
The museums were housed in the Borgia Apartments until 1932, when new buildings were opened, some hallways a mile long in distance from the beginning to the Sistine Chapel at the end.
This is the museum of an immense collections of artifacts, sculptures, frescoes, paintings all from centuries of gathering by the Roman Catholic Church.
Among the thousands of items on display, here you will find Caravaggio's Entombment, Leonardo's St. Jerome in the wilderness, Perugino's Madonna and Child with Saints and San Francesco al Prato Resurrection, Giotto's Stefaneschi Triptch and Raphael's Madonna Of Foligno and Transfiguration.
Then there are designated galleries: Greek Cross Gallery, Gallery of Statues, Gallery of Busts, Gallery of Masks, Gallery of statues of animals, the Chiaramonti with statues and friezes and sarcophagus and the Museo Gregorian Etrusco -- eight galleries of Etruscan pieces from archaeological excavations.
There's the Raphael Room of frescoes. The most famous includes the Disputation of the Most Holy Sacrament or, Triumph of Religion of Famous Religious Personages. In this fresco, if you have time to stop and look, and not get bumped by the crowds, see if you can find St Peter, Adam, St. John the Evangelist, David, St. Laurence, Judas Maccabees, St. Stephen, Moses, Abraham, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Dante Alighieri.
There's also the School of Athens with such historic personages as Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Zoroaster, Diogenes.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

The Pieta, Michelangelo's masterpiece, in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome
The Baldacchino under Michelangelo's dome in St. Peters Basilica, Rome, with the golden light in background, outlined by a dove symbolizing The Holy Ghost
Enter St. Peter's Basilica in Rome from the center door and view the huge interior