yeah
imagine you're in Rome and you've made your way to the vatican museums and
you've been shuffling down long corridors past statues frescoes lots and
lots of stuff
you're heading towards the sistine chapel at last a long corridor a stair
and a door
you're at the threshold of the Sistine Chapel
so what do you expect it soaring domes choirs of angels
we don't really have any of that there instead
you may ask yourself what do we have well curtains up on the sistine chapel
and I mean literally you're surrounded by painted curtains
the original decoration of this Chapel churches used tapestries not just to
keep out cold during long masses but as a way to represent the great theatre of
life
the human drama in which each one of us plays the part is a great story a story
that encompasses the whole world and they came to unfold in the three stages
of the painting in the Sistine Chapel
now this building started out as a space for a small group of wealthy educated
Christian priests they prayed there they elected their Pope there 500 years ago
was the ultimate ecclesiastical man cave
so you may ask how can it be that today
it attracts and delight 5 million people a year from all different backgrounds
because in that compressed space there was a creative explosion ignited by the
electric excitement of new geopolitical frontiers which set on fire
the ancient missionary tradition of the church and produce one of the greatest
works of art in history
now this development took place as a great evolution moving from the
beginning of a few elite and eventually able to speak to audiences of people can
come from all over the world
this evolution took place in three stages each one linked to a historical
circumstances
the first one was rather limited in scope it reflected the rather parochial
perspective
the second one took place after world views were dramatically altered after
Columbus's historical voyage and the third when the age of discovery was well
underway and the church rose to the challenge of going global
the original decoration of this church reflected a smaller world there were
busy scenes that told the stories of the lives of Jesus and Moses reflecting the
development of the Jewish and Christian people
the man who commissioned this Pope six is the fourth assembled a dream team of
Florentine art including men like sandro botticelli and the man who would become
Michelangelo's future painting teacher
Carolyn daya these men they blanketed the walls with the fries of pure color
and in these stories you'll notice familiar landscapes the artists using
Roman monuments or a Tuscan landscape to render a faraway story something much
more familiar with the addition of images of the Pope's friends and family
this was a perfect decoration for a small court limited to the European
continent but in 1492 the New World was discovered horizons were expanding and
this little 133 by 46-foot microcosm had to expand as well and it did thanks to a
creative genius a visionary and an awesome story
now the great of genius was Michelangelo Buonarroti 33 years old when he was
tapped to decorate 12,000 square foot of ceiling and the deck was stacked against
him he had trained and painting that had left to pursue sculpture
there were angry patrons in Florence because he had left a stack of
incomplete Commission's Lord to rome by the prospect of a great sculptural
project and that project had fallen through
and he had been left with a commissioned to paint Twelve Apostles against the
decorative background in the Sistine Chapel ceiling which would look like
every other ceiling in Italy but genius rose to the challenge in a
when a man dared to sail across the Atlantic Ocean Michelangelo dared to
chart new artistic waters
he too would tell a story no apostles
but a story of Great Beginnings the story of Genesis not really an easy sell
stories on the ceiling
how would you be able to read a busy scene from 62 feet below the painting
techniques that have been handed on for 200 years in Florentine studios was not
equipped for this kind of a narrative but Michelangelo wasn't really a painter
and so he played to his strengths instead of being accustomed to filling
space with busyness
he took a hammer and chisel and hacked away at a piece of marble to reveal the
figure within Michelangelo was an essentialist he would tell his story and
massive dynamic bodies
this plan was embraced by the larger-than-life Pope Julius the second
a man who was unafraid of Michelangelo's braising genius
he was nephew to Pope six is the fourth and he has been steeped in art for 30
years and he knew its power and history is handed down the moniker of the
warrior pulpit this man's legacy to the Vatican it wasn't fortresses in
artillery
it was art he left us the Raphael rooms the Sistine Chapel he left safety ters
Basilica as well as an extraordinary collection of greco-roman sculptures
decidedly unchristian works that would become the seedbed of the world's first
modern museum the Vatican Museums Julius was a man who envisioned the Vatican
that would be eternally relevant through grandeur and through beauty and he was
right
the encounter between these two giants Michelangelo and Julius the second
that's what gave us the Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo was so committed to this project that he succeeded in getting the
job done in three and a half years using a skeleton crew and spending most of the
time hours on end reaching up above his head to paint the stories on the ceiling
so let's look at the ceiling and see storytelling gone global
No
familiar artistic references to the world around you
there's just space and structure and energy a monumental painted framework
which opens on 29 panels more driven by sculptural form than painterly color and
we stand in the far end by the entrance far from the altar and from the gated
enclosure intended for the clergy and we peer into the distance
looking for a beginning and whether in scientific inquiry or in or in biblical
tradition we think in terms of a primal spark
Michelangelo gave us an initial energy when he gave us the separation of light
and dark a churning figure blurry in the distance compressed into a tight space
the next figure looms larger and you see a figure hurdling from one side to the
next he leaves in his wake
the Sun the Moon vegetation
Michelangelo didn't focus on the stuff that was being created
unlike all the other artists he focused on the act of creation and then the
movement stops like a Caesar ax in poetry in the Creator hovers so what's
he doing is creating land is he creating see or is he looking back over his
handiwork the universe and his treasures
just like Michelangelo must have looking back over his work in the ceiling and
proclaiming it is good
so now the scene is set and you get to the culmination of creation which is man
Adam leaps to the I a light figure against a dark background but looking
closer
that leg is pretty language on the ground the arm is heavy on the knee
Adam lacks that interior spark that will impel him to greatness
thats part is about to be conferred by the Creator in that finger which is one
millimeter from the hand of Adam it puts us at the edge of our seats because
we're one moment from that contact through which that man will discover his
purpose leap up and take his place at the pinnacle of creation
and then Michelangelo threw a curveball
who is in that other arm Eve the first woman no she's not an afterthought she's
part of the plan she's always been in his mind
look at her so intimate with God that her hand curls around his arm and for me
an American art historian from the 21st century this was the moment that the
painting spoke to me because I realized that this representation of the human
drama was always about men and women so much so that the dead center of the
heart of the ceiling is the creation of woman not Adam and the fact is that when
you see them together in the Garden of Eden
they fall together and together they're proud posture turns into folded shame
you are at a critical juncture now in the ceiling
you are exactly at the point where you and I can go no further into the church
the gated enclosure keeps us out of the inner sanctum and we are cast out much
like Adam and Eve the remaining scenes in the ceiling they mirror the crowded
chaos of the world around us
you have Noah and his ark and the flood you have knowing he's making a sacrifice
of the covenant with God maybe he's the Savior
oh but no no it's the one who grew grapes invented wine got drunk and
passed out naked in his barn
it is a curious way to design the ceiling now starting out with God
creating light and the up with some guy blind drunk in a barn and so compared
with the atom you might think Michelangelo is making fun of us
but he's about to dispel the gloom by using those bright colors right
underneath Noah emerald topaz scarlet on the Prophet Zechariah Zechariah foresees
a light coming from the east and we are turned at this juncture to a new
destination with symbols and prophets who will lead us on a parade
you have the heroes and heroines who make safe the way and we follow the
mothers and fathers they are the motors of this great human engine driving it
forward and now we're at the keystone of the ceiling
the culmination of the whole thing with a figure that looks like he's about to
fall out of his space
into our space encroaching our space this is the most important juncture past
meets president
this figure Jonah who spent three days in the belly of the whale for the
Christians is the symbol of the renewal of humanity through Jesus sacrifice but
for the multitude of visitors to that museum from all faiths who visit there
every day
he is the moment the distant past encounters and meets immediate reality
all of this brings us to the yawning archway of the altar wall where we see
Michelangelo's Last Judgment painted in 1534 after the world had changed again
the Reformation had splintered the church the Ottoman Empire had made Islam
a household word and Magellan had found a route into the Pacific Ocean
how is a 59 year old artist who has never been any further than Venice going
to speak to this new world
Michelangelo chose to paint destiny that universal desire common to all of us to
leave a legacy of excellence told in terms of the Christian vision of the
Last Judgement the end of the world
Michelangelo gave you a series of figures who are wearing these strikingly
beautiful bodies they know more covers
no more portraits except for a couple it's a composition only out of bodies
391
no two alike unique like each and every one of us
they start in the lower corner breaking away from the ground
struggling and trying to rise those who have risen reach back to help others and
in one amazing vignette you have a black man and a white man pulled up together
in an incredible vision of human unity in this new world
the lion's share of the space goes to the winner's circle
there you find men and women completely nude like athletes they are the ones who
have overcome adversity in Michelangelo's vision of people who do
bad adversity overcome obstacles
they're just like athletes so you have men and women flexing and posing in this
extraordinary spotlight
presiding over this assembly is Jesus first a suffering man on the cross now a
glorious ruler in heaven and as Michelangelo proved in his painting
hardship setbacks and obstacles they don't limit excellence a fortune
now this does lead us to one odd thing
this is the Pope's private chapel in the best way you can describe that is indeed
a stew of nudes the Michelangelo was trying to use the only the best artistic
language the most universal artistic language he could think of that of the
human body and so instead of showing the way of showing virtues such as fortitude
her self mastery
he borrowed from Julius the seconds wonderful collection of sculptures in
order to show inner strength as external power now
one contemporary did write that the chapel was too beautiful to do not cause
controversy and so it did Michelangelo soon found that thanks to the printing
press complains about the nudity spread all over the place and soon his
masterpiece of human drama was labeled pornography at which point he added two
more portraits one of the man who criticized the papal court here and the
other one of himself as a dried up Hoss
no athlete in the hands of a long-suffering martyr the year he died
he saw several of these figures covered over a triumph or trivial distractions
over his great excitation to glory
and so now we stand in the here and now we are caught in that space between
beginnings and endings in the great huge totality of the human experience the
Sistine Chapel forces us to look around as if it were a mirror
Who am I in this picture my one of the crowd and by the drunk guy
am I the athlete and as we leave this Haven of uplifting beauty we are
inspired to ask ourselves life's biggest questions
Who am I and what role do I play in this great theatre of life
thank you
laughs thank you
is that you mentioned this whole issue of pornography too many news and too
many daily life scenes and the improper things in the eyes of the time
especially stories bigger is not just touching up and coming up some of the
figures this work of art was almost destroyed because of that the the effect
of the effect of the last judgment was enormous the printing press made sure
that everybody saw it
and so this was something that happened within a couple of weeks it was
something that happened over the space of twenty years of editorials and
complaints saying to the church
you you can't possibly tell us how to live our lives it did you notice you
have pornography and the Pope's chapel and so after complaints and insistence
of trying to get this work destroyed it was finally the year that Michelangelo
died that the church finally found a compromise a way to save the painting
and that was in putting up these extra 30 covers and that happens to be the
origin of fig leaf thing that's where it all came about and it came about from a
church that was trying to save a work of art not indeed the face or destroy it
this is what you just gave us is not the classic toward that people get to them
and they go to their this next chapter
I think I don't notice that is an ad here
no not necessary it is it is is a statement it is the experience of five
today is encountering problems too many people want to see this
there and the result is 5 million people going to the tiny door and experiencing
it in a completely different way to be just in the last 50 maybe I think it's
really nice to be able to pause and look but also realize even when you're in
those days with you know fun with meet 2013 20 thousand people they even those
days when you're in there with all those other people
look around you and think how amazing it is that some painted plaster from 500
years ago can still draw all those people standing side by side with you
looking upwards with their jaws dropped is afraid statement about how Beauty
truly can speak to us all through time in three geographic space
please that's it watch it there thank you