The Sistine Chapel Ceiling Essay Sample

In certain movies and shows (such as The Game of Thrones) that are based during the renaissance period, they show us beautiful chapels with stained glass and beautiful paintings. Well, these chapels aren’t just on the television, they’re all around us. One of the most prominently known common chapels is The Sistine Chapel because of the beautiful ceiling painted by Michelangelo. In this paper I will be talking about the history and culture of the painting, how the painting related to the culture during the time it was painted and the elements embedded in throughout the painting.

The Sistine Chapel was built by the end of 1483. The chapel was owned by the Pope which he used for important masses and ceremonies. It was also used for the election of a new Pope once the previous Pope passed away. It was named after Pope Sixtus IV. The decoration of the chapel started in the early 1500’s. Many artists helped paint and decorate the walls of the Chapel. Some of these artists were Perugino and Botticelli. Michelangelo was in charge of painting the 9 tiles of the ceiling. At first Michelangelo was not for the idea of doing the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel because he was just finishing sculpting Pope Julius’s II’s marble tomb. Not only the fact he was working on a whole different project but, he was a sculptor. He was not known as a painter and didn’t have much experience in the painting scene. With the Pope’s request he left his current project of the marble tomb and accepted the commission and started his new project. Michelangelo started painting the Sistine ceiling in early 1509. The ceiling took a total of four years to finish and it was not an easy task. There were many backsets throughout the years. At the start of the project while Michelangelo was starting to paint over the original ceiling of sky blue with golden stars he found mold and begged Julius II for someone else to take on the project. Julius II declined and continued to have Michelangelo continue the journey. One of the biggest struggles that came along with the project was the act of the project. He was not able to lay down and paint the ceiling considering it was sixty-eight feet high, therefore he had to stand on planks and arch his back so his upper body was facing the ceiling along with his arm all the way out so he could paint the ceiling to begin with. It was uncomfortable for him and he even wrote a humorous poem in his notebook about it along with a sketch of how his body looked. Throughout the four years of the commission, he essentially resided at the chapel and consumed onions and stale bread.

Michelangelo was primarily in control of what he wanted to paint on the ceiling, the Pope gave him the suggestion of painting the twelve apostles but he stuck to scenes from the book of Genius. The nine scenes are the separation of light from darkness, creation of the sun, moon and other planets, separation of earth and water, the creation of Adam, the creation of Eve, Adam and Eve’s temptation and eviction from the Garden of Eden, The Great Flood, Noah's sacrifice and lastly, Noah’s drunkenness. He chose these nine scenes because they tell the first story; the start of mankind. During the Renaissance period, religion was very important. When this time period started, it was a new form of Christianity being evolved compared to medieval Christianity. A lot of followers started to stray away from the Catholic churches because they continued to teach the medieval way compared to the new type of christianity known as Protestant Reformation which was led by Martin Luther. The Reformation was an attempt to reform the Catholic churches and go back into the biblical ideas and theories. This protest did bring the people back into Christianity but did end up making the diverse in the same way religion is to this day. There were some people that wanted to continue their religion of how they grew up with it to be while the others wanted to experience this new reformation of the religion. The piece of the Sistine Chapel ceiling was the first events that were featured in the Bible with God creating Earth itself along with Adam and Eve then the great flood. It ties in with the culture of the painting because the Reformation was one of the biggest religious protests of all time and it happened during the Renaissance time period. The painting had a huge religious influence on it not only because of the Reformation happening but, it was in a chapel; where people go for their religious views either for prayer or to worship.

He put the stories  in chronological order and split the nine tiles into a set of three. The first set was God creating Earth, the second was Adam and Eve with their temptation and eviction and Lastly it was the Great Flood.  He made them flow together so people could see his art as the story it told. He involved many different techniques because of the different panels he was painting along with the size of the painting. He had to be very specific of how he decided to paint it because of how he wanted people to view it, and being careful with the length and width so it would flow smoothly like a story instead of looking distorted as if paintings were put next to each other.