Michelangelo's early works used classical pyramidal composition and emphasized anatomy. His masterwork was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508-1512, commissioned by Pope Julius II. The ceiling depicts nine scenes from Genesis divided by pillars, synthesizing architecture, painting and sculpture. Michelangelo's figures are bulky with exaggerated forms, holding impossible positions to support the vault. The Last Judgement shows Christ judging humanity, with sinners struggling in hell and the saved rising to heaven. Michelangelo came to value spiritual beauty over physical beauty as a fleeting illusion, seeking the eternal contemplation of God.

1. MICHELANGELO
as a Painter

2. First pictorics works
• Classic, by using
pyramidal composition
like his
contemporaries.
• As innovation: big
measures and
importance of anatomy

3. The Doni tondo
. Naked in the background
represent the world of
ideas
. Cool colors,
Nature is just the scenery

4. His main work (1508-12),
Creation and Judgement

5. The Sistine Chapel ceiling
• It was commisioned by Julius II
• Designed from foot (Man in Sin) to head (perfection of
God’s face)

7. From the Book of Genesis
• Neoplatonic ideas
• Divided in nine different pictures divided by fictitious pillars
• As result: synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture

8. Symbols under de main pictures
• Prophets and sibyls
to whom divine truth is
revealed

9. Cumea Sibyl and Isaias Prophet

10. Picture or sculture?
His compositions are
far away from the
ideal beauty.
Large male arms in
contrast with fragile
lower limbs

12. • Bulky, ugly and exaggereated forms

13. In lunette
• Christ's ancestors perform daily scenes to combine the pagan
world and the Christian world.

14. Naked
Symbols of life and
passion.
Impossible positions
holding the vault.

16. Upward progression to the altar

17. Noah drunk and old
Noah's body is a symbol of human imperfection

18. The flood
Humanity remains imperfect and wants
to survive escaping punishment

19. ‘And God created Man in His
image…’
• The figures appear in a brain shaped mantle which is the
spirit of God, the Origin of all.
• Energy of God in contrast with Adam’s passiveness

20. The creation of Eve

21. • The original sin and the expulsion from
paradise

22. God said, Let there be light
• and there was light

23. God created a firmament and
separated the waters and land

24. Creation is a violent act, this way
God makes his power known to man

25. The last Judgement

26. • Is concerned about
the future of
Humanity

27. Judge
• Christ, authority
and Judge, decides
the fate of humanity

28. • Christ young,
athletic, no
attributes of
passion, sets the
scene

29. On the left
Sinners struggling
to emerge from the
shadows of hell

30. On the right
The Saved go up by an
extraordinary force

31. Meanwhile angel musicians play sacred
hymns

32. St Bartolomeo and Michelangelo
• Beauty in itself does not interest Michelangelo

33. • Michelangelo had loved the human
figure, the living beauty, the charm that
emanates from man, but he realizes
that physical beauty is a sudden
illusion and loves the spiritual beauty,
because is eternal like the
contemplation of God.
The End