“Just as David defended his people and governed them justly, so those who
govern this city should act.”
Our next example shows the Sistine Chapel ceiling (c. 1508–1511, Vatican)
in a view of the chapel looking toward the altar wall. The private chapel of
the pope, located between the papal apartments and the basilica of St. Peter,
it is one of the most sacred places in the Vatican. The chapel was founded by
Pope Sixtus IV. It was built and decorated in a brief span of time. It originally
consisted of a painted ceiling and a lower group of frescoes painted by a
number of artists in 1481–1482. The double sequence of scenes on the ceiling
shows the Creation through the Expulsion from Eden, followed by scenes
from the life of Noah. The Expulsion is directly above the gate that separates
the clergy from the laity. On the coved sides, prophets alternate with sibyls,
with the ancestors of Christ in the triangular
areas and Old Testament scenes in the four
corners. Although there is the illusion of
architecture on the Sistine Chapel ceiling,
everything is painted.
The ceiling is famous for a group of ¿ gures
called the Nudes (Ignudi) who frame the
scenes at each of the corners. The Nude
from the corner above the altar, near the
Separation of Light from Darkness, appears to have À esh that is real. The
medallion is “bronze,” suspended by cloth bands over “marble” architecture,
including the seat provided for the Nude and the “frame” of the painting with
the Separation of Light from Darkness. This detail also shows the beginning
of the second scene—the Creation of the Sun and the Moon—in which we
see the knees of God. There is no general agreement on whether the Nudes
carry speci¿ c meaning. They have been called “Christian athletes,” yet they
are so striking that one hesitates to deny them meaning. The Nudes derive
from the Belvedere Torso, a Hellenistic sculpture from 50 B.C. in the Vatican
collection. This served Michelangelo as a theme, and all the Nudes are
variations of that theme. The ancient sculpture group of the Laocoön was
also an inÀ uence.
Michelangelo’s work is
huge when compared
with Donatello’s,
measuring 16 ½ feet
tall without the base.