This video is the closest thing I’ve seen to actually viewing the chapel in person, because holy shit the pictures do NOT do it justice.
When we did our Vatican tour and were about to enter the Sistine Chapel, our guide kept stressing that we would be looking at a flat ceiling. Which baffled me because come on, doesn’t everyone know that? I mean the whole point is that it’s flat, that’s why Michelangelo put all those paintings on it. And then we went inside.
Oh. God.
Arms and legs were reaching down towards us. The “columns” couldn’t look more like actual marble if they tried. The Biblical scenes were less like two-dimensional scenes and more like windows into an entirely different world. It was the most extraordinary, most convincing tromp l’oeil this side of Wile E. Coyote disguising a rock face as a train tunnel.
Yes, it was busy. Yes, the guards will get pissy if you take photos or speak in anything above the slightest whisper. But Michelangelo did some really impressive shit in that chapel.
(Also some Vatican bigwig complained about the Last Judgement fresco when Michelangelo was painting it, so he included a portrait of the critic as Minos getting his balls bitten off by a snake, which is a magnificently petty move.)
IT’S FLAT‽
I knew about the passive aggressive bit, but… wow. Amazing.
amhrancas 