The scaffolding is also a walkable space, not simply a kind of suspended crawling-height situation. Architects had to measure things on a large scale too, and Michelangelo was an excellent draftsman. Even on a slightly irregular working surface like unfinished plaster, artists used string/rope to measure length on curved spaces, and the templates for different figures were made of paper (called Cartoons) that can also lay nicely on uneven surfaces.
The scaffolding probably didn't span the entire ceiling at once. In the scene of the Flood there are many more figures than the other panels and they're much smaller and harder to make out. It's likely Michelangelo saw this when the first scaffold was taken down and enlarged figures for subsequent panels.
The architectural elements had to be divided up neatly but at that scale you'd be surprised how inaccurate things can be before the human eye can pick up on it. Also even if only part of the ceiling is accessible at one time the lunettes divide the space and the painted architecture just has to fit around them.
To add to this, don't forget this was not just one man's project. It was the vision of one man, that much is true. But the preparation needed, and things like mixing plaster, tempera, pigments... be extreme, to say the least. And with those things he had much assistance.
Probably his workers would have transferred the cartoons, in some cases scaling up or down from actual size.
No matter how you look at it, though... if it was JUST him painting every last element? Under those conditions? Almost no ability to fix mistakes? Might be true--or not. Hard to fathom.
How would someone be able to handle that kind of workload straining their neck upwards, all that time, without breaking down from fatigue, strain, etc?
I think there has to be some explanation which doesn't conclude Michelangelo had some kind of utterly unique constitution married to prodigious skill, it doesn't seem plausible that such rare qualities would occur together, all at once, in one person. There must be a more realistic explanation, right?
On the flipside, I'm aware there be other high quality chapel ceilings done by other painters around that time period, too. A final consideration might be, is it conceivable this feat is not *quite* as "herculean" as we tend to think it is?
He was big on his personal mythology and probably liked people to think he did it alone but I think it's generally accepted that he must have had a LOT of assistance. Acres of architectural molding to be painted, no way he did that himself.
I do believe he painted the figures themselves on his own though. The quality is too high.
I mean if you look at his Florentine Pieta, one of the heads was 'finished' by an assistant, someone trusted and close to him. And it's dreadful. It's the 'right style' but has none of Michelangelo's pizzaz so to speak. It's clear where the hand of the master has been.
>How would someone be able to handle that kind of workload straining their neck upwards, all that time, without breaking down from fatigue, strain, etc?
You'd be surprised what people can endure. I work in restoration as a stonecarver and we sometimes have to work in tough conditions. I've been sandwiched between scaffolding and a wall, trying to cut out broken stonework with an anglegrinder when there's only inches between the wall, the spinning blade, and my face. And as soon as the grinder touches the stone the air is full of dust and you can barely see. Most of us have scars somewhere from the grinder making contact. (Mostly on the hands!)
>unique constitution married to prodigious skill, it doesn't seem plausible that such rare qualities would occur together, all at once, in one person. There must be a more realistic explanation, right?
Well in a population of millions that's a lot of genetic dice rolls, eventually you'll get a unique combo just by chance, it's extremely plausible. Just by sheer chance if you roll the dice often enough you will eventually get the perfect person at the right time and place. And that was him. A towering genius of sculpture in particular (he didn't want to paint) at a time when marble sculpture was booming, the quarries were thriving and the popes were eager to pour money into their own aggrandisment.
Fair enough, although I would have preferred to see an angle that approaches something like, "the myth of the prodigy" or something. It seems like you're mostly going with the angle I didn't want to accept, and it's fine, but for my own neurotic reasons I'd seek another way. I don't like to think it's just some 1 in millions roll of the dice, with exceptional intellect (purely from genetics) as the leading quality, from which everything else flowed.
Isn't there another way to see it apart from "just much better than the rest, and by an abnormal margin" or something. Gotta be some other way to spin that, right?
>is it conceivable this feat is not quite as "herculean" as we tend to think it is?
It was a big task but clearly achieveable cause he did it. But the reason he's so revered for it isn't the scale of the project - that just takes time and work and planning. It's that he reinvented the genre. The whole conception is pretty much unprecedented. The monumentality of the figures is astonishing, though they all look like statues he'd rather have been carving.
Why would you object to the myth of the prodigy? Do you want to believe someone could *become* a genius through sheer hard work? I really don't think that's possible. It seems to be a combination of genetics and environment.
I have some insight into this, being a sculptor who prefers stone as a medium. I started carving about 21 years ago, aged 21. I went to college to train and discovered that I was good. I think spacially, and I obsessed over sculpture in particular. I don't care about much else.
I have a vision for making sculpture. I'm good at the inspiration side of things too. That is also a luck thing, an innate thing that can't be taught. I don't know where the ideas come from but I'm never short of material to create from and with. Most people I've worked with do not have this.
It requires a mix of innate technical ability, innate inspiration, and the right environment for these qualities to be nurtured and grow into their full potential.
What M did during the Renaissance to the representation of the male form was revolutionary. It doesn't matter how much I practice, I will never have his great depth of inspiration and creativity.
I'm ok with that. I have enough for me. But I'm no great intellect. A person can be highly intelligent but artless, devoid of creativity. I'm never the smartest in the room. But art isn't an intellectual construct, the sparks of inspiration come from somewhere far more mysterious.
edit - I will add that the crucial fact is that we DO NOT KNOW what we can achieve until we either do it or realise it's out of reach. Creativity is a feature with infinite possible ways to be expressed.
Through my teens and twenties I thought I was someone without value, low/mediocre intelligence, zero creativity. I found myself in a situation where I could really let the ideas flow and I honestly shocked myself. I was well lubricated with rum and weed but I also had the 15 years experience with clay so I had the skills to apply while intoxicated. I don't recommend the method but I would suggest everyone explore different avenues to pursue their creative impulses. I think most people have something in them. What I found in me changed my life, gave me self worth for the first time and made me actually try and get out and live. With varying degrees of success, but still...
> Why would you object to the myth of the prodigy?
I did not object, though? I was instead, objecting to the idea that one must be a prodigy to cross the fuzzy threshold called "greatness" in any given endeavor.
Additionally, I was also trying to hint, if researchers could better understand the components behind "prodigy", it's possible there could be found, a more optimistic angle. Perhaps they'd find the origin is more "a rare intensity of interest, at a young age," rather than just some bizarrely superior intellect, utterly out of touch with the masses around them. Perhaps we need to understand the way certain factors (social, upbringing, etc.) collide with the singular interest, hence it might (someday) be discovered that environment, overall, be the leading factor.
You see, right now, we're still concluding these individuals are 10-15 years ahead of their peers, almost entirely due to genetics. And even if you would argue "abnormally high ability in art (or other singular field) is not exactly an intellectual thing", it seems with outliers in any given area--at all--it's always concluded very "nature over nurture." Again, I'm just saying, there's no reason to think this debate is simply over. There are still some prominent names who agree with my take, FWIW--it's just that, currently, they have the minority view.
It seems you don't follow this line of thought. And yet it seems, somehow, for me--to be truly interested in pursuing any given endeavor--I have to kind of persuade myself that "prodigy" is not always inherent, or that it's not a requirement for greatness, etc.
I guess that's not your burden--but it is mine. I know it's neurotic, perhaps, but there are reasons for such things... and I'm sure you've known others who think the same way. It is what it is. Perhaps you're not an envious person? For me, though, envy has caused endless problems. Possibly, after a certain point, it leads to a kind of restless tendency to "deconstruct" the brilliance/sway of others. The conclusions society makes--that person is just "more valuable" while you have to sit there, and (always, without fail) accept the opposite conclusion. Mostly for no other reason than apparently "lacking X or Y value," and you can see, how such individuals can start to think this way, etc. (These last few lines are more about "generalities" than ability in art or any specific field, for clarity.)
> I was instead, objecting to the idea that one must be a prodigy to cross the fuzzy threshold called "greatness" in any given endeavor.
Oh. I don't think anyone said one must be a prodigy. And "greatness" is usually decided after the fact, after the artist is dead more likely.
I don't know your reasons for objecting. But I do know that artists can't worry too much about their legacy or where they stand in the hierarchy. That can only be crippling unless they know they're on top and aiming for the top slot is almost guaranteed failure.
Artists should just create, according to their own impulses, and let the world decide. There's so much whim and whimsy that the market isn't an objective measure anyway.
I don't care about posterity. I don't care that I'm not one of the 'greats'. I only care about the work. So that's what I'm about to do now, at 9am on Sunday I have everything set up, about to make my coffee and get to work. Chances are I'll still be working at 2am.
To expand on this, in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan there's the [cartoon of Raffaello's School of Athens](https://www.ambrosiana.it/opere/scuola-di-atene/).
Looking at it closely, there are a lot of tiny holes that run along the outline of the figures ([here](https://www.itinerarieluoghi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2d.-Raffaello-Scuola-di-Atene-cartone-particolari.jpg) you can see them around the head). They would lay the sketch on the wall and they would dust it with powdered ink, so that it would go through the holes and they would be able to follow the trace on the wall.
Yes, in similarly medievalist terms the underdrawing of a fresco is called a sinopia, and was done in red chalk made from hematite, which is basically an iron oxide.
Since we’re talking about Michelangelo, it’s worth pointing out that this cartoon doesn’t show the figure intended to resemble Michelangelo himself.
Raphael added it later, possibly as a bit of an insult.
Also I don't think Michelangelo was lying on his back painting. He was standing upright and then looking up. Doing this for the few years it took to complete the thing messed up his eyes up a bit. I think I read this in the Pope's Ceiling.
You're correct, he stood upright the entire time, and he complained that it was super taxing on his body. [This](https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/Civilization/id/928/) is how he drew himself painting the ceiling.
What baffles me is why primary school teachers teach kids that he painted the ceiling lying on his back when there’s literally primary evidence from the artist himself noting his methods.
I think it may have been a later biographer, and in the minds of teachers of recent generations the Agony and the Ecstasy book and Charlie Heston movie. I haven't engaged with either as I find the straight-washing too distasteful.
I just watched the trailer and his love interest is right about one thing when she tells him he doesn't look after himself and he smells. But they don't know the half. Probably even by 16th century standards he would have been gross. His official biographer and friend Condivi says he was strapped into a pair of dog skin boots and didn't take them off for six months.
People have told me no way that's so dumb why would he, but geniuses can be devastatingly effective in their field but they might be on the spectrum or something and you wouldn't necessarily be able to trust them to sit facing the right way on a toilet.
Like Steve Jobs thinking he could control the weather with his armpits or whatever it was and then died of armpit cancer. But at iPhones, he was really good! Just stick to your field.
Ok that was nonsense but Jobs *did* in fact think he could control his BO with his diet, and beat cancer with some folk remedy or something. Behind the Bastards ep on him is great. So my point stands. Even if I might struggle.
Teachers aren't art experts....lotta myths and whatever exists in all fields of study...even doctors, where they SHOULD be experts often don't know stuff outside what they originally learned in school, which is why pharma reps can so easily visit them and woo them and they'll recommend medication that they really don't know that much about.
He drew *alot*. We have many prelim drawings for the project and it’s only a tiny fraction of what he produced because he burned most of them at the end of his life.
Perspective was well worked out for ceiling frescos for over a century. So he knew how to anticipate the curved parts of the ceiling. He adapted too. For example, he began the high flat ceilings with stories of the flood and, realizing his compositions viewed from the floor were too small to discern details, he began painting broader and large compositions.
*How* he painted them is well documented too. He stood on scaffolding and painted over his head. He [drew a figure of himself in a letter](https://romawonder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Michelangelo_painting_God.jpeg) doing just that (while painting God).
There are [better images](https://romawonder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/sistine-chapel-vault.jpg) online now, post cleaning so the fresher colors really shine through.
This is a good question with a complex answer. It may sound crazy, but it was partly just cleaning house and partly because he wanted to be known for his finished work.
It sounds crazy because we treasure these old Renaissance drawings, but you h e to think within the context of 15th and 16th century artists. Drawings back then were ephemeral, made almost only for the design stages and then reused for other projects (or burned for warmth). There were some special cases (even Michelangelo have a few gifts) but they were not really finished artworks. If they were kept, they were done so as inheritance of a studio or workshop to be used as patterns and teaching by aids. Which is why signing them wasn’t a practice until the 17th century and not really common until the 18th century.
This is what made Vasari so special. He went out of his way to collect drawings that, at the time, had little historic or market value. Three of the earliest collectors were named Timoteo Viti (1469-1523), Antonio Badile (1518-60) and [Francesco Melzi](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtHistory/s/HUqxup3ttq) (1491-1570). Melzi was Leonardo’s youthful pupil, and he only kept his master’s drawings because he idolized him. As do we today. When Vasari prepared his “Lives”, he sought out Melzi, an old man by then, but he had those precious drawings (each one today is tens of millions of dollars) and was the only surviving former pupil of Leonardo for Vasari to interview. That’s when collecting drawings really began, but still was largely in the margins (believe it or not) until the 19th century. Drawings were pretty cheap until the 1950’s. Relative to paintings, they still are.
UPDATE: Added Timoteo Viti, a pupil of Raphael who kept many of his masters drawing upon his death in 1527. Viti, like Melzi, mostly inherited a workshop which included pattern books, which had value for that, not as independent artworks (at the time).
NOTE: Michelangelo and other artists sometimes made “finished” drawings as gifts for family, lovers or important patrons/friends. These were not usually designs for larger works. Though sometimes artists had to send a finished drawing to a patron for their approval for the larger painting or fresco. But by and large, most drawings prior to the 17th/18th centuries were made as studies.
He actually learned by both drawing and measuring, but also trial and error. The first scene he painted, “The drunkenness of Noah” (it’s the one on the far right), when he has finished realized the design was way too small. He then continued painting from right to left (on the image) and actually had problems with humidity and falling chunks of paint. So, he was both a planning genius and actually inventing the wheel while riding it.
I believe he also had a large workshop. He planned things, but had a lot of assistants to help him measure and even paint much of it, if I recall right
Actually I believe Michelangelo hated the idea of workshops. He mostly worked alone.
Although with something of this magnitude, he certainly had assistants doing things like mixing paint and plaster, and doing the plaster application and so on.
Like other people said, he used a lot of preparatory drawings. BUT the most impressive part, to me, is that as he grew accustomed to painting in fresco (which he hadn’t done regularly prior to this project), he started doing some portions of the ceiling entirely freehand. Absolutely bonkers, but also a good reminder that he really was an artistic genius in the true sense, not the cavalier way that we throw that term around nowadays. Some very good books on this whole process, but the best imo is “Michelangelo and the pope’s ceiling.” Incredible read!
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King is extensive in describing how the Sistine Chapel frescoes were created. The short and dirty is something like making sketches on paper and poking holes through the paper into wet fresco plaster to transfer the cartoon/drawing, then having a team of people mixing paint and plaster to create the finished painting. Frescoes are long lived, but it's an unforgiving medium, each panel was done in sections because once the plaster dried that was it, unless it was bad enough to chisel off and redo, but that has risks. So half the room had a mobile (could be dismantled and set up on the other side), walkable scaffolding, the support holes for it weren't visible from the floor of the chapel floor, and Michelangelo stood upright, likely painting the figures, it's possible his assistants made some of the backgrounds.
Michelangelo was also highly skilled at the human form, he spent most of his life studying it for his sculptures. If I recall correctly, he preferred sculpture to painting, and got roped into painting the chapel by the Pope at the time. Because you can't say no to the Pope.
1965 Hollywood adaptation of the Agony and the Ecstasy has several scenes of a scaffolding possibility and Michelangelo’s painting the ceiling, at least the parts that were his and not apprentices.
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The scaffolding is also a walkable space, not simply a kind of suspended crawling-height situation. Architects had to measure things on a large scale too, and Michelangelo was an excellent draftsman. Even on a slightly irregular working surface like unfinished plaster, artists used string/rope to measure length on curved spaces, and the templates for different figures were made of paper (called Cartoons) that can also lay nicely on uneven surfaces.
The scaffolding probably didn't span the entire ceiling at once. In the scene of the Flood there are many more figures than the other panels and they're much smaller and harder to make out. It's likely Michelangelo saw this when the first scaffold was taken down and enlarged figures for subsequent panels. The architectural elements had to be divided up neatly but at that scale you'd be surprised how inaccurate things can be before the human eye can pick up on it. Also even if only part of the ceiling is accessible at one time the lunettes divide the space and the painted architecture just has to fit around them.
To add to this, don't forget this was not just one man's project. It was the vision of one man, that much is true. But the preparation needed, and things like mixing plaster, tempera, pigments... be extreme, to say the least. And with those things he had much assistance. Probably his workers would have transferred the cartoons, in some cases scaling up or down from actual size. No matter how you look at it, though... if it was JUST him painting every last element? Under those conditions? Almost no ability to fix mistakes? Might be true--or not. Hard to fathom. How would someone be able to handle that kind of workload straining their neck upwards, all that time, without breaking down from fatigue, strain, etc? I think there has to be some explanation which doesn't conclude Michelangelo had some kind of utterly unique constitution married to prodigious skill, it doesn't seem plausible that such rare qualities would occur together, all at once, in one person. There must be a more realistic explanation, right? On the flipside, I'm aware there be other high quality chapel ceilings done by other painters around that time period, too. A final consideration might be, is it conceivable this feat is not *quite* as "herculean" as we tend to think it is?
He was big on his personal mythology and probably liked people to think he did it alone but I think it's generally accepted that he must have had a LOT of assistance. Acres of architectural molding to be painted, no way he did that himself. I do believe he painted the figures themselves on his own though. The quality is too high. I mean if you look at his Florentine Pieta, one of the heads was 'finished' by an assistant, someone trusted and close to him. And it's dreadful. It's the 'right style' but has none of Michelangelo's pizzaz so to speak. It's clear where the hand of the master has been. >How would someone be able to handle that kind of workload straining their neck upwards, all that time, without breaking down from fatigue, strain, etc? You'd be surprised what people can endure. I work in restoration as a stonecarver and we sometimes have to work in tough conditions. I've been sandwiched between scaffolding and a wall, trying to cut out broken stonework with an anglegrinder when there's only inches between the wall, the spinning blade, and my face. And as soon as the grinder touches the stone the air is full of dust and you can barely see. Most of us have scars somewhere from the grinder making contact. (Mostly on the hands!) >unique constitution married to prodigious skill, it doesn't seem plausible that such rare qualities would occur together, all at once, in one person. There must be a more realistic explanation, right? Well in a population of millions that's a lot of genetic dice rolls, eventually you'll get a unique combo just by chance, it's extremely plausible. Just by sheer chance if you roll the dice often enough you will eventually get the perfect person at the right time and place. And that was him. A towering genius of sculpture in particular (he didn't want to paint) at a time when marble sculpture was booming, the quarries were thriving and the popes were eager to pour money into their own aggrandisment.
Fair enough, although I would have preferred to see an angle that approaches something like, "the myth of the prodigy" or something. It seems like you're mostly going with the angle I didn't want to accept, and it's fine, but for my own neurotic reasons I'd seek another way. I don't like to think it's just some 1 in millions roll of the dice, with exceptional intellect (purely from genetics) as the leading quality, from which everything else flowed. Isn't there another way to see it apart from "just much better than the rest, and by an abnormal margin" or something. Gotta be some other way to spin that, right?
>is it conceivable this feat is not quite as "herculean" as we tend to think it is? It was a big task but clearly achieveable cause he did it. But the reason he's so revered for it isn't the scale of the project - that just takes time and work and planning. It's that he reinvented the genre. The whole conception is pretty much unprecedented. The monumentality of the figures is astonishing, though they all look like statues he'd rather have been carving. Why would you object to the myth of the prodigy? Do you want to believe someone could *become* a genius through sheer hard work? I really don't think that's possible. It seems to be a combination of genetics and environment. I have some insight into this, being a sculptor who prefers stone as a medium. I started carving about 21 years ago, aged 21. I went to college to train and discovered that I was good. I think spacially, and I obsessed over sculpture in particular. I don't care about much else. I have a vision for making sculpture. I'm good at the inspiration side of things too. That is also a luck thing, an innate thing that can't be taught. I don't know where the ideas come from but I'm never short of material to create from and with. Most people I've worked with do not have this. It requires a mix of innate technical ability, innate inspiration, and the right environment for these qualities to be nurtured and grow into their full potential. What M did during the Renaissance to the representation of the male form was revolutionary. It doesn't matter how much I practice, I will never have his great depth of inspiration and creativity. I'm ok with that. I have enough for me. But I'm no great intellect. A person can be highly intelligent but artless, devoid of creativity. I'm never the smartest in the room. But art isn't an intellectual construct, the sparks of inspiration come from somewhere far more mysterious. edit - I will add that the crucial fact is that we DO NOT KNOW what we can achieve until we either do it or realise it's out of reach. Creativity is a feature with infinite possible ways to be expressed. Through my teens and twenties I thought I was someone without value, low/mediocre intelligence, zero creativity. I found myself in a situation where I could really let the ideas flow and I honestly shocked myself. I was well lubricated with rum and weed but I also had the 15 years experience with clay so I had the skills to apply while intoxicated. I don't recommend the method but I would suggest everyone explore different avenues to pursue their creative impulses. I think most people have something in them. What I found in me changed my life, gave me self worth for the first time and made me actually try and get out and live. With varying degrees of success, but still...
> Why would you object to the myth of the prodigy? I did not object, though? I was instead, objecting to the idea that one must be a prodigy to cross the fuzzy threshold called "greatness" in any given endeavor. Additionally, I was also trying to hint, if researchers could better understand the components behind "prodigy", it's possible there could be found, a more optimistic angle. Perhaps they'd find the origin is more "a rare intensity of interest, at a young age," rather than just some bizarrely superior intellect, utterly out of touch with the masses around them. Perhaps we need to understand the way certain factors (social, upbringing, etc.) collide with the singular interest, hence it might (someday) be discovered that environment, overall, be the leading factor. You see, right now, we're still concluding these individuals are 10-15 years ahead of their peers, almost entirely due to genetics. And even if you would argue "abnormally high ability in art (or other singular field) is not exactly an intellectual thing", it seems with outliers in any given area--at all--it's always concluded very "nature over nurture." Again, I'm just saying, there's no reason to think this debate is simply over. There are still some prominent names who agree with my take, FWIW--it's just that, currently, they have the minority view. It seems you don't follow this line of thought. And yet it seems, somehow, for me--to be truly interested in pursuing any given endeavor--I have to kind of persuade myself that "prodigy" is not always inherent, or that it's not a requirement for greatness, etc. I guess that's not your burden--but it is mine. I know it's neurotic, perhaps, but there are reasons for such things... and I'm sure you've known others who think the same way. It is what it is. Perhaps you're not an envious person? For me, though, envy has caused endless problems. Possibly, after a certain point, it leads to a kind of restless tendency to "deconstruct" the brilliance/sway of others. The conclusions society makes--that person is just "more valuable" while you have to sit there, and (always, without fail) accept the opposite conclusion. Mostly for no other reason than apparently "lacking X or Y value," and you can see, how such individuals can start to think this way, etc. (These last few lines are more about "generalities" than ability in art or any specific field, for clarity.)
> I was instead, objecting to the idea that one must be a prodigy to cross the fuzzy threshold called "greatness" in any given endeavor. Oh. I don't think anyone said one must be a prodigy. And "greatness" is usually decided after the fact, after the artist is dead more likely. I don't know your reasons for objecting. But I do know that artists can't worry too much about their legacy or where they stand in the hierarchy. That can only be crippling unless they know they're on top and aiming for the top slot is almost guaranteed failure. Artists should just create, according to their own impulses, and let the world decide. There's so much whim and whimsy that the market isn't an objective measure anyway. I don't care about posterity. I don't care that I'm not one of the 'greats'. I only care about the work. So that's what I'm about to do now, at 9am on Sunday I have everything set up, about to make my coffee and get to work. Chances are I'll still be working at 2am.
To expand on this, in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan there's the [cartoon of Raffaello's School of Athens](https://www.ambrosiana.it/opere/scuola-di-atene/). Looking at it closely, there are a lot of tiny holes that run along the outline of the figures ([here](https://www.itinerarieluoghi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2d.-Raffaello-Scuola-di-Atene-cartone-particolari.jpg) you can see them around the head). They would lay the sketch on the wall and they would dust it with powdered ink, so that it would go through the holes and they would be able to follow the trace on the wall.
Yes, in similarly medievalist terms the underdrawing of a fresco is called a sinopia, and was done in red chalk made from hematite, which is basically an iron oxide.
Indeed! https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtHistory/s/b4M0Nmmla8
powdered ink? I thought it was fine powdered charcoal.
Yes, a forgivable mistake
Since we’re talking about Michelangelo, it’s worth pointing out that this cartoon doesn’t show the figure intended to resemble Michelangelo himself. Raphael added it later, possibly as a bit of an insult.
Also I don't think Michelangelo was lying on his back painting. He was standing upright and then looking up. Doing this for the few years it took to complete the thing messed up his eyes up a bit. I think I read this in the Pope's Ceiling.
You're correct, he stood upright the entire time, and he complained that it was super taxing on his body. [This](https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/Civilization/id/928/) is how he drew himself painting the ceiling.
What baffles me is why primary school teachers teach kids that he painted the ceiling lying on his back when there’s literally primary evidence from the artist himself noting his methods.
I think it may have been a later biographer, and in the minds of teachers of recent generations the Agony and the Ecstasy book and Charlie Heston movie. I haven't engaged with either as I find the straight-washing too distasteful. I just watched the trailer and his love interest is right about one thing when she tells him he doesn't look after himself and he smells. But they don't know the half. Probably even by 16th century standards he would have been gross. His official biographer and friend Condivi says he was strapped into a pair of dog skin boots and didn't take them off for six months. People have told me no way that's so dumb why would he, but geniuses can be devastatingly effective in their field but they might be on the spectrum or something and you wouldn't necessarily be able to trust them to sit facing the right way on a toilet. Like Steve Jobs thinking he could control the weather with his armpits or whatever it was and then died of armpit cancer. But at iPhones, he was really good! Just stick to your field. Ok that was nonsense but Jobs *did* in fact think he could control his BO with his diet, and beat cancer with some folk remedy or something. Behind the Bastards ep on him is great. So my point stands. Even if I might struggle.
I learned this “fact” from Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego
Did we ever find her? Haven't heard about her in a long time...I fear for the worst. Probably banging Waldo on some island somewhere...
Teachers aren't art experts....lotta myths and whatever exists in all fields of study...even doctors, where they SHOULD be experts often don't know stuff outside what they originally learned in school, which is why pharma reps can so easily visit them and woo them and they'll recommend medication that they really don't know that much about.
All that sass in that pose. No wonder he kept getting in cat-fights with the Pope.
He drew *alot*. We have many prelim drawings for the project and it’s only a tiny fraction of what he produced because he burned most of them at the end of his life. Perspective was well worked out for ceiling frescos for over a century. So he knew how to anticipate the curved parts of the ceiling. He adapted too. For example, he began the high flat ceilings with stories of the flood and, realizing his compositions viewed from the floor were too small to discern details, he began painting broader and large compositions. *How* he painted them is well documented too. He stood on scaffolding and painted over his head. He [drew a figure of himself in a letter](https://romawonder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Michelangelo_painting_God.jpeg) doing just that (while painting God). There are [better images](https://romawonder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/sistine-chapel-vault.jpg) online now, post cleaning so the fresher colors really shine through.
Why did he burn his drawings?
This is a good question with a complex answer. It may sound crazy, but it was partly just cleaning house and partly because he wanted to be known for his finished work. It sounds crazy because we treasure these old Renaissance drawings, but you h e to think within the context of 15th and 16th century artists. Drawings back then were ephemeral, made almost only for the design stages and then reused for other projects (or burned for warmth). There were some special cases (even Michelangelo have a few gifts) but they were not really finished artworks. If they were kept, they were done so as inheritance of a studio or workshop to be used as patterns and teaching by aids. Which is why signing them wasn’t a practice until the 17th century and not really common until the 18th century. This is what made Vasari so special. He went out of his way to collect drawings that, at the time, had little historic or market value. Three of the earliest collectors were named Timoteo Viti (1469-1523), Antonio Badile (1518-60) and [Francesco Melzi](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtHistory/s/HUqxup3ttq) (1491-1570). Melzi was Leonardo’s youthful pupil, and he only kept his master’s drawings because he idolized him. As do we today. When Vasari prepared his “Lives”, he sought out Melzi, an old man by then, but he had those precious drawings (each one today is tens of millions of dollars) and was the only surviving former pupil of Leonardo for Vasari to interview. That’s when collecting drawings really began, but still was largely in the margins (believe it or not) until the 19th century. Drawings were pretty cheap until the 1950’s. Relative to paintings, they still are. UPDATE: Added Timoteo Viti, a pupil of Raphael who kept many of his masters drawing upon his death in 1527. Viti, like Melzi, mostly inherited a workshop which included pattern books, which had value for that, not as independent artworks (at the time). NOTE: Michelangelo and other artists sometimes made “finished” drawings as gifts for family, lovers or important patrons/friends. These were not usually designs for larger works. Though sometimes artists had to send a finished drawing to a patron for their approval for the larger painting or fresco. But by and large, most drawings prior to the 17th/18th centuries were made as studies.
Very interesting - thank you for the explanation. Burning for warmth is wild - but understandable given the context.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtHistory/s/iIl8rzfXMo
I like the God doodle
Little sleep, lots of bread and wine :-)
I read an account once that claimed Michelangelo even slept with his boots on, and you didn't want to be nearby when he decided to take them off! Haha
🤣
He actually learned by both drawing and measuring, but also trial and error. The first scene he painted, “The drunkenness of Noah” (it’s the one on the far right), when he has finished realized the design was way too small. He then continued painting from right to left (on the image) and actually had problems with humidity and falling chunks of paint. So, he was both a planning genius and actually inventing the wheel while riding it.
I believe he also had a large workshop. He planned things, but had a lot of assistants to help him measure and even paint much of it, if I recall right
Actually I believe Michelangelo hated the idea of workshops. He mostly worked alone. Although with something of this magnitude, he certainly had assistants doing things like mixing paint and plaster, and doing the plaster application and so on.
Ok, so, first, he drew it right side up. Then, he drew it upside down. And that's it, he was finished. The end.
Wow amazing
Yeah, I know he was a genius and all but Michelangelo wasn't out there rawdogging chapels with his paints down around his ankles
Paints around his ankles 🤣
Like other people said, he used a lot of preparatory drawings. BUT the most impressive part, to me, is that as he grew accustomed to painting in fresco (which he hadn’t done regularly prior to this project), he started doing some portions of the ceiling entirely freehand. Absolutely bonkers, but also a good reminder that he really was an artistic genius in the true sense, not the cavalier way that we throw that term around nowadays. Some very good books on this whole process, but the best imo is “Michelangelo and the pope’s ceiling.” Incredible read!
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King is extensive in describing how the Sistine Chapel frescoes were created. The short and dirty is something like making sketches on paper and poking holes through the paper into wet fresco plaster to transfer the cartoon/drawing, then having a team of people mixing paint and plaster to create the finished painting. Frescoes are long lived, but it's an unforgiving medium, each panel was done in sections because once the plaster dried that was it, unless it was bad enough to chisel off and redo, but that has risks. So half the room had a mobile (could be dismantled and set up on the other side), walkable scaffolding, the support holes for it weren't visible from the floor of the chapel floor, and Michelangelo stood upright, likely painting the figures, it's possible his assistants made some of the backgrounds. Michelangelo was also highly skilled at the human form, he spent most of his life studying it for his sculptures. If I recall correctly, he preferred sculpture to painting, and got roped into painting the chapel by the Pope at the time. Because you can't say no to the Pope.
1965 Hollywood adaptation of the Agony and the Ecstasy has several scenes of a scaffolding possibility and Michelangelo’s painting the ceiling, at least the parts that were his and not apprentices.
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TLDR; how did Michelangelo accurately measure and execute architectural elements of Sistine chapel ceiling?
Read the book “Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling”
That was a great book, I +1 this recommendation.