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
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
1 comment:
Just in case there is someone interested in this, these are the right answers:
QUESTION 1
Michelangelo was accused of immorality because he represented completely naked figures and showing their genitals.
QUESTION 2
The person represented as Minos was Biagio da Cesena, the Pope´s Master of Ceremonies, who strongly criticised Michelangelo´s painting and said that those nude figures were more appropriate for a tavern or a public bath than for a chapel.
Michelangelo took revenge of Biagio da Cesena, representing him with donkey ears on hell. Biagio da Cesena complained to the Pope, but this one told him that he couldn´t do anything, because he didn´t have jurisdiction on hell. When the fresco was restored, it was discovered that Michelangelo had painted Biagio da Cesena being bitten in the genitalia by a coiled snake.
QUESTION 3
Saint Bartholomew is a portrait of the writer Pietro d´Aretino and the flayed skin has Michelangelo´s face.
QUESTION 4
All the genitals were covered with breeches, because the Council of Trent condemned nudity in religious art. The painter in charge of doing this was Daniele da Volterra, mostly known as Il Braghettone ("the breeches- painter")
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