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Sistine Chapel Essay examples

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Michelangelo de Buonarotti, a distinguished painter, sculptor, architect, and poet of Italy was born in 1475 in the territory of Arezzo, in Tuscany. His time was of a new age of enlightenment where artistic and inventive freedom was beginning to come back into the forefront, Michelangelo stands as the archetype of the Renaissance genius, with a talent that transcends time and continues to influence and inspire contemporary artists. Michelangelo grew up and was first exposed to stone carving, “he regarded himself first and foremost as a sculptor.” (FIERO) Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II Della Rovere in 1508 to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel frescoed earlier by Piero Matteo d'Amelia with a star-spangled sky. …show more content…

In my opinion, this depiction of the Last Judgment is beautifully rendered and very stylized.

The idea of commissioning an enormous fresco, the largest ever painted in that century, depicting the Last Judgment, was probably suggested to Clement VII by the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time. After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535, scaffolding was put up in front of the altar wall. Even before its official unveiling, the Judgment became the target of violent criticisms of a moral character. All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment, including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent humanity face to face with salvation.

The first impression I have when faced with the Last Judgment is that of a truly universal event, at the center of which stands the powerful figure of Christ. His raised right hand compels the figures on the left hand side, which are trying to ascend, to be plunged down towards Charon and Minos, the Judge of the Underworld while his left hand is drawing up the chosen people on his right in an irresistible current of strength. Excluded are the two upper lunettes with

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