Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

Author: Jin En
Publisher: Lianjing Publishing House
Publication Date: 2004-09-01
Features: For immortal art, how much sacrifice must an artist endure? Surrounded by endless warfare, plagued by family conflicts and personal illnesses, how could an artist persevere? Facing the competition of peers and the interference of patrons, how could an artist bring their creativity to fruition? By looking at the story behind the Sistine Chapel, you will understand. At the age of thirty-three, the artist Michelangelo possessed extraordinary talent and arrogance; at sixty-three, Pope Julius II was the "Terror Pope," renowned both domestically and internationally, and a difficult art patron. These two names were forever linked by the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter, yet the Pope insisted that he paint the fresco on the vault of the Sistine Chapel. All conditions were unfavorable to him: he was unfamiliar with fresco techniques, working long hours on scaffolding not only harmed his health but could even be fatal, the materials and funding were unstable, and his family not only couldn’t provide support but demanded excessively. Meanwhile, at the other end of the Vatican, the twenty-five-year-old, beloved genius painter Raphael was also working on another set of paintings... In war-torn Italy, Michelangelo overcame all obstacles and, within four years, created the Sistine Chapel that has been admired for five hundred years. Even his rival Raphael was willing to pay homage to Michelangelo, depicting him in his painting "The School of Athens." Generations of artists have regarded the Sistine Chapel frescoes as a "scroll to be turned through," constantly drawing inspiration from their predecessors. How did he achieve this? This book is a time machine, taking you back to Italy in 1508, starting from the very beginning!
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