*le sigh*

So remember when I used to live in Italy and spent my weeekdays after class wandering around Siena window-shopping with my friends and eating endless amounts of baked goods from Sclavi and pastry shops? And remember how I spent my weekends wandering about towns all over Italy trying out exotic gelato flavors and devouring as much art as I could possibly manage to stuff into my brain and heart?

I do. Can I go back to that instead of the 4 exams and a paper that are up next on my academic hit parade?

Welcome to my life.

Michelangelo Buonarotti

I should probably blog about something pertaining to my life right now, but I'm gonna play the "this is my ITALY blog" and instead talk about Italy again.

Remember? Italy? I used to live there?

Right.

Well for my humanitites final project I had to write 10 short papers on different works of art and such that we got to see in real life. For this blog I've decided to post one of the papers I wrote, with a chance of posting others in the future, depending upon the public's response. Anyway, here's what I wrote about the Last Judgment by Michelangelo, on the back wall of the Sistine Chapel:

(Here's a poor representation of the Last Judgment)

            Oh, the Sistine Chapel. When your neck gets too tired to keep staring at the frescoed ceiling, all you have to do is look at the Last Judgment on the back wall to get your Michelangelo fix. Instead of bringing beauty, glory and fame to some other chapel, Pope Julius II decided to bring more agony and humility to Michelangelo by condemning him to spend four more years painting in the Sistine. The result is Michelangelo-mania at the end of the Vatican Museum marathon.

            I was herded into the Sistine Chapel with a German tour group on my heels. It was a cloudy day and therefore poorly lit in the chapel, which made it even more difficult to take in the frescoes than just trying to tune out the incessant drone of voices and avoid running into one of the hundreds of other people with their eyes focused on the ceiling instead of their feet.

            To Michelangelo’s credit, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a tremendous accomplishment. Fantastically designed and executed, every inch is covered with fresco. But the Last Judgment is what really caught my eye. I was first impressed by the sheer size of it, something I have found to be the most misleading about reproductions of art in pictures and textbooks – the size. What looks like and over-crowded judgment scene in pictures is not quite so crowded-looking in person. There are still many, many figures in the fresco, all of them with massive frames and bulging muscles, even the women. While I recognize the artistic skill it takes to even begin, let alone complete such an undertaking as the Last Judgment, I am not convinced that Michelangelo is a painter. His human forms are much too muscular, too body builder, and all too similar for me.

            Even Jesus is a rippling mass of muscle and flesh. I had never seen Jesus quite so broad-shouldered and wide before. He seems uncharacteristically formed, even for Michelangelo, considering the slender, less bulky Christs he depicts in both the Pietà and Christ statue in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Perhaps, though, those pre-resurrection Christs are not the perfect forms, perfect instead being his Last Judgment Christ.

            I always thought Christ was oddly placed in the fresco. He is not at the very top surrounded by angels, nor is he in the center of the work. But seeing the fresco in the Sistine cleared away my confusion. As the sun broke through the clouds outside, light poured in through the windows, illuminating the chapel. With a small gasp, I saw the light shine directly on Christ, as though the chapel had brightened as a reflection of His own illuminating glory. I realized then that Christ is perfectly situated in the painting, something I would never have known had I see it anywhere else.

            The Sistine Chapel is not my favorite place in Rome. I was glad to have a chance to see the amazing works of art that cover every inch of the interior, not all by Michelangelo, but it was a perfect embodiment of Rome: loud, rule-ignoring tourists from 20 different countries crowded in a stuffy room with a handful of jaded Italian guards who unsuccessfully attempt to silence the crowd, all of which is taking place in a building that is older than America and full of so much great art it is dizzying. If there had been some gypsies and chain smokers packed in there as well, it might well have been the worst place in all of Rome. But I suppose it is only fitting. After all, for Michelangelo it probably was the worst place in Rome.

Christ - in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

Pieta'