Well, well, well. Here we are at the end of the year, and here you are browsing the humor section of clay. But wait! Wasn’t this supposed to be a humor and art column? Well, yes. If you recall, my first couple of articles last fall had to do with analyzing various paintings, but soon this column diverged from normalcy and moved on to conspiracy theories and general chaos. For my final article of the year, however, I wanted to return to the original theme: art.
As we’re wrapping up the school year, there’s no better place to go than the magnificent, tourist-infested Sistine chapel! (Please don’t ask how many tries it took to spell that correctly.) Upon hearing that name, most people immediately think of the amazing mural with God’s hand reaching down while Adam’s reaches up. This one picture gets all the fame, but how many of you have actually seen the murals besides this one? There are more than 300 figures on the ceiling alone, most of them probably very jealous of Adam for his exorbitant fame and their lack thereof.
From the quality and beauty of the paintings, you might expect that Michelangelo loved this project, but in fact he hated it. Considering himself a sculptor rather than a painter, he had never even made a fresco before, so he made every effort to get out of the job, but the Pope was persistent. He was in the middle of working on decorating Pope Julius II’s tomb in Rome when the same Pope, apparently deciding his chapel was more important than his tomb, asked if he’d decorate the Sistine Chapel. Though Michelangelo had his heart set on finishing the tomb, he reluctantly accepted the commission, though in the beginning he was convinced it was a set-up by his rivals who wanted to give him an impossible task and see him fail.
For the next four years of his life, he practically lived on scaffolding with his brush in his hand, so it’s not too hard to see why his disposition turned rather sour. He griped constantly about how much he hated this project, and he even wrote a poem about how horrible it was. He complained that “(my) stomach’s squashed under my chin,” and “(my) spine’s all knotted from folding myself over.” “I’m not in the right place,” he adamantly insisted. “I am not a painter.”
If it’s true that Michelangelo wasn’t a painter, he was definitely one of the best not-painters of his time. His 12,000 square feet of paintings have held up remarkably well during the five centuries since their creation with one notable exception a year after he started his project when a few of the panels began to get moldy. He pointed this out to the pope as evidence of what a bad painter he was and how this entire project was divinely condemned from the start, but the pope insisted the project be continued. After that, the rest of his work held up against the wear of time and the resident spiders that lived on the ceiling. (Is it possible he caused the paintings to decay himself so as to get out of finishing the work? I wouldn’t put it past him.) Sadly, twenty-five years after finishing the ceiling, he had to return and destroy part of his work. At yet another request from the pope, he had to cut down two depictions of Christ’s ancestors to make room for The Last Judgment. How sad–after suffering through creating so much art–to have to destroy it himself!
Today, thousands of visitors stand in awe on the chapel floor, staring up at the ceiling. (Unfortunately we don’t know who created the floor of the chapel, despite the fact that it’s much more important than the ceiling. Poor Julius et Markus Floor Waxing Inc. never gets any recognition.) The story of the Bible, told in paint, inspires many and strengthens their faith.
And now it’s time for a nice conclusion and send off, so here we go. Michelangelo had absolutely no desire to paint the Sistine Chapel; he thought he was a sculptor, not a painter. He complained throughout the entire process and tried at every chance to get out of it, but nevertheless, the ceiling of the chapel serves as both an artistic and spiritual inspiration.
As you go into this summer, whether you’re still in high school or moving on in life, please keep this in mind: no matter what you think you are, God has big plans for you. You might think you’re a sculptor and grumble and complain all the way through a painting project He throws at you. But just remember: you never know how He’s going to use that in another 500 years.
Cohen, Jennie. “7 Things You May Not Know About the Sistine Chapel.” History, https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-sistine-chapel
“15 Fascinating Facts About The Sistine Chapel.” Graylinerome, https://graylinerome.com/15-fascinating-facts-about-sistine-chapel/
“Top 10 Little Known Facts About the Sistine Chapel.” Stephaniestorey, https://stephaniestorey.com/blog/top-10-little-known-facts-about-the-sistine-ceiling