1508~12, 13.7*39m, 45*138ft, Fresco
In the vaultings that rise between the five windows on
either side of the chapel, Michelangelo placed gigantic images of the
Old Testament prophets who spoke to the Jews of the coming Messiah,
alternating with images of Sibyls, who, according to an old tradition,
predicted the coming of Christ to the pagans. He painted them as mighty
men and women, sitting deep in thought, reading, writing, arguing, or as
though they were listening to an inner voice. Between these rows of
over life-size figures, on the ceiling proper, he painted the story of the
Creation and of Noah. But, as though this immense task had not satisfied
his urge for creating ever-new images, he filled the framework between
these pictures with an overwhel-
ming host of figures, some of them like
statues, others like living youths of supernatural beauty, holding fest-
oons
and medallions with yet more stories. And even this is only the centrepiece.
Beyond that, in the vaultings and directly below them, he painted an endless
succession of men and women in infinite variation-the ancestors of Christ as
they are enumerated in the Bible. When we see all this wealth of figures in a
photographic reproduction, we may suspect that the whole ceiling may look
crowded and unbalanced. It is one of the great surprises, when one comes
into the Sistine Chapel, to find how simple and harmonious the ceiling looks if
we regard it merely as a piece of superb decoration, and how clear the whole
arrangement. Since it was cleaned of its many layers of candle-soot and dust
in the 1980s the colours have been revealed as strong and luminous, a necessity
if the ceiling was to be visible in a chapel with so few and narrow windows.
(This is a point rarely considered by those who have admired these paintings in
the strong electric light that is now thrown on to the ceiling.
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