Sistine Chapel Cieling, Michelangelo

Title: Sistine Chapel Cieling
Artist: Michelangelo
Location: Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome
Date: 1508 - 12

Pope Julius commissions Michelangelo to do this even though he was primarily a sculptor

It used to have frescoes along the sides- but a star-spangled cieling

Two main challenges:

1. Painting on scaffolding upside down
2. Make sure people could see it from a distance
   

How is a fresco made?

• means 'fresh' b/c it needs to be done on fresh plaster
  
• speed is essential - requires working in sections - time-consuming process
  
• gives sense of speed and immediacy
• uses sketches - but final result is unpredictable
  
• sometimes a grid of squares is used
  
• plaster is wet - ahedesive for paint applied
  
• arrichio or base coat is applied, prick little marks for outline and draw a synopia or red-toned pigment
  
• gionnata - small day - indicative of how much is done is a day
• takes 2 days to do 1 figure
  
• 29 gionnatae , 582 gionnate in entire chapel
• Buon Fresco -real fresco - wet plaster
  
• Fresco secco - pigment on dry plaster
  
• most frescoes are mixed
  
• Sistine marks new style in painting
  
• contorted nudes
  
• attention to musculature
  
• framed by architectural fictives with ignudi
• prophets and sibyls forsee christ
  
• faux coloumns with cupids
  
• Old Testament figures remind one of Christ's sacrifice
  
• Theme: Fall and Redemption
• bright, contrasting color
• worked in reverse chronological order i.e. from Noah to Creation