The Sistine Chapel as if you were there

Source: http://exploringeurope.prugh.org/?attachment_id=146

Here you have an impressive link to visit the Sistine Chapel and enjoy all its details as if you were there. You can use the mouse to move to the different parts of Michelangelo´s frescoes. Use the zoom and and enjoy!

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

Challenge number 21

This week´s research will consist in discovering some curiosities about one of the most important Renaissance´s works of art: The last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo Buonarrotti on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in theVatican. Michelangelo needed four years to complete this fresco, from 1537 to 1541. 

The Sistine Chapel was restored in the 1980´s and 1990´s. The restorers tried to show Michelangelo´s paintings as he had conceived them, but there are some additions on this fresco Michelangelo didn´t like. Here you have the questions:

QUESTION 1
Why was The last Judgement considered to be a scandalous painting?


QUESTION 2

The following figure is located on the low right side of the painting, in hell´s part. It represents Minos, one of the three judges of the underworld. He´s represented with donkey ears and wrapped in coiled snakes. Michelangelo used a real model to paint this figure. Who was represented as Minos? Why?

QUESTION 3

The following figure represents Saint Bartholomew with a flayed skin. Who did Michelangelo use as model to paint Saint Bartholomew? Whose face is represented in the flayed skin?

QUESTION 4

After the Council of Trent some important alterations were made on The Last Judgement. What changes were made in it and why? What painter was in charge of making these changes? What does his nickname mean?

One last curiosity: Michelangelo also painted two beloved persons on The Last Judgement. On the left side of the picture above the woman below the Virgin is Vittoria Colonna, one of Michelangelo´s best friends. He dedicated her a lot of poems and she was considered to be his Platonic love. Michelangelo also painted Tomasso dei Cavalieri, the man he loved the most. He was probably the model Michelangelo used for the Christ of The Last Judgement and he also painted him behind Saint Bartholomew´s figure. Michelangelo also dedicated Tommaso dei Cavalieri more than 300 hundred poems.


If you want to observe The Last Judgement with more detail, you can use the following link. It belongs to the Vatican Museums. On the left side of the screen you have a magnifying glass that you can use to enlarge the  different parts of the image:


 http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/x-Schede/CSNs/CSNs_G_Giud.html

Why did Moses have horns?

The Moses is one of the most famous Michelangelo Buonarrotti´s sculptures. Michelangelo sculpted it as part of Pope Julius II tomb. It´s an impressive marble sculpture located in the small church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, the church of the Della Rovere family. Michelangelo considered the Moses to be his most life-like creation and there is a legend that says that when he finished it, he struck the statue´s knee and said " Now speak!". 

But one of the most shocking aspects of the Moses is that the prophet seems to have horns. This was the common way of representing Moses in iconography, but the origin of this representation lies on a translation mistake. Saint Jerome, the translator of the Bible from Hebrew to Latin, made a mistake. When he translated the paragraph that explains the moment when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he made a mistake with the word karan, which can mean "brightness" and also "horn" in Hebrew. The context of this story of the Bible suggests that Moses´s head was surrounded by some kind of halo, but Saint Jerome wrote "horns" instead of "halo" and this conditioned many further representations of Moses in art history. 

Presentation about Renaissance art

Here you have the presentation we are going to use to study Reanissance art. If you haven´t had time to copy the scheme of the different architectural elements used in this style, you can use the presentation to complete your notes. Pay special attention to paintings, because you will have to choose one and prepare a small presentation about it. We´ll talk about this next week. Have a nice long weekend. 

Challenge number 20

As we have started studying Renaissance art, this week´s challenge will discover you some of the most important works of art of this style. These are the questions: 

QUESTION 1

This is a famous painting of an artist who can be considered a true example of a Renaissance man. This painting has recently arrived in Spain as part of a collection of works of art of Polish museums. It will be exhibited in Madrid during the summer. What is the name of this painting? Why did it receive this name? Who painted it?

QUESTION 2

The school of Athens 

This painting is called The school of Athens. It´s a fresco painted by Rafael Sanzio in one of the rooms of the Vatican. Rafael represented some important wisemen of Antiquity in it and he used some important figures of the Renaissance as models. You will have to identify some of the people represented in this painting:

A. What important figure of Ancient Greece is this one? Who did Rafael use as model to paint him?

B. What important figure of Ancient Greece is this one? Who did Rafael use as model to paint him?

C.What important figure of Ancient Greece is this one? Who did Rafael use as model to paint him?

D. There is only a woman in this painting. What important woman of Antiquity was this one?

A musical vision of the Renaissance period

Here you have a very funny video from the History for Music Lovers channel on Youtube. If you watch it, you will have a general idea about Humanism and the Renaissance. The most important thinkers and artists of the 15th and 16th centuries have an important role in this video. And, of course, if you like, you can learn the song. Pay a special attention to the musicians ;)

Source:  http://www.youtube.com/user/historyteachers#g/u