Renaissance Blog
What I am displaying to you today is a piece from the Italian Renaissance by the artist known as Michelangelo. This piece alone took over four years to create, from 1535 to 1541. At first glance, I feel overwhelmed by how busy this canvas is, how many elements are used, how many colors are used, etc. This piece depicts the second coming of Christ; you can see the Bible-inspired Michelangelo with a wooden cross on the top left and angles flying across the canvas; he uses some of his imitations through the canvas. This stuck out to me because I remember learning about this in Sunday school and how violent and chaotic this event would be, so this painting does an excellent job of displaying this. In the center of the canvas, you will notice Christ himself while the others look; some are trying to reach him, hoping to get saved, while others are giving ugly looks.
The first element that stands out the most is the use of colors and shading. At first glance, this is a two-dimensional piece, but his shading of each person makes it appear three-dimensional. A second form would be the shape of each human figure. These shapes were organic, meaning that they were not geometric.
The second element that stands out to me is the line of symmetry and colors. What I mean by symmetrical is if you cut the canvas in half, it would be almost the same. There are minor differences, but more is needed to affect the overall symmetry. Another exciting finding is that every human has all their limbs. This piece uses different shades of color, and depth is presented by the light and dark shades of color followed by shadows.
For my final element, I want to focus on the solid symbolism used in this piece. As I mentioned, we can see a wooden cross in the top left, symbolizing Christ's sacrifices. In the middle, we see Christ with his mother, Mary. It appears that Mary is looking down at the people; her face looks like she's grieving, so I believe she is looking at the people not getting saved by Christ. I want to back up that thought with the fire in the bottom right, as fire often represents hell or war. A few hidden symbols to look for are a man in the center, a little to the right, holding keys and money, displaying greed, and being attached to earthly things.
I would not own a copy of this work, as I would have nowhere to put it, and it is not my art style. This art is very chaotic and reminds me of stress and sin. I can't think of anywhere to put this aside besides a museum or art collection.
This painting, commissioned by Pope Paul the Third, can be found on a wall behind the altar at the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo is one of the many paintings that were part of the Catholic Church's reinvention of Rome and is considered one of the world's greatest paintings. There has been some conflict between the painting and the popes, as some say that having nudity in a church was unethical. They then hired Daniele da Volterra to paint clothes on the people.
My sources
I can totally understand where you are coming from with the chaos of the painting. It stresses me out just due to the amount of what is going on through the painting that my eyes can't seem to focus on one thing. I love the art elements you chose, they fit really well with this painting. Although not my style either, I could understand why someone would want this piece maybe in a church or cathedral of some kind.
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