Painting the Sistine Chapel

Although Michelangelo was a skilled artist, he had problems when painting the Sistine Chapel. One of them was that he was “forced” to do it by Pope Julius II. Julius had this idea that Michelangelo could paint anything. The problem is that Michelangelo has used a brush very few times and he was better at sculpting than painting. Nonetheless, he still had to do it by order of the Pope. Some historians said that when Michelangelo protested, Julius hit him in the head with his staff.
Another problem that this Renaissance painter had, was that he didn’t know how to paint fresco, the technique the Pope asked him to use. He must learn the technique if he wanted to not remain in shame for the rest of his life. The fresco technique consisted of mixing sand and lime, and then spread the mix over the wall. Next, the artist applied his colors but had to do it fast, while the wall was still wet. When it dried, the colors fused chemically with the lime and became permanent.  Michelangelo complained in the letters to his father that it was physically ex
hausting to paint frescos. For example, when he painted a ceiling, he wrote that he had to paint it above his head. In one of his letters, he wrote that he had neck pain and couldn’t stand it anymore. The artist even drew a cartoon, in which he was painting a figure on the ceiling.

What Michelangelo did next was to write to his friends in Florence, in order to come to Rome and teach him how to paint frescos. He already had a concept for the paintings which was the events and figures before the birth of Christ. Among these events was the creation of Adam or Eva eating the forbidden apple.

When his friends came, they painted part of the first panel on the ceiling. However, he later sent them away after he realized that he could not paint the way his friends did. The artist decided to risk it all. To start his frescos, Michelangelo made sketches on canvas with watercolor. Then he locked himself in the Sistine Chapel and spent hours copying these sketches on the vault of the chapel. He stood in a wooden plank that was 60 feet above the ground. His head was always looking up. While he was painting the chapel, he had to live inside it from 1508 until 1512. He was so focused on his job that he said: “I have no friends and don’t want any.”
Finally, when he was almost finishing painting the chapel, Julius II decided to see it for himself. He was so amazed because the paintings were something that wasn’t seen before in the history of Christian art. Once the public saw the chapel for the first time, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing and many considered the paintings the greatest thing of all time. Julius II would later proudly give the first Mass in the chapel.

Bibliography:
How Michelangelo Painted the Sistine Chapel | Great Names in History. (n.d.).Great Names in History. Retrieved January 15, 2014, from http://100falcons.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/how-michelangelo-painted-the-sistine-chapel/