No Fresco delivery could be complete without a mention of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/CSN/CSN_Main.html. Aside from his remarkable modelling skills to produce this scale of painting in situ the achievement was indicative of his physique, being able to work overhead for years. He constructed a stepped platform that was held imposition to holes in the wall without being propped from the ground. He still had the difficult job of sustaining himself with these difficult conditions.The sketch by himself includes the poem and an indication of the working platform and also depicting him painting the finished Image of God Creating the Universe, seen here.
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- I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den–
- As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,
- Or in what other land they hap to be–
- Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:
- My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,
- Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly
- Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery
- Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.
- My loins into my paunch like levers grind:
- My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;
- My feet unguided wander to and fro;
- In front my skin grows loose and long; behind,
- By bending it becomes more taut and strait;
- Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:
- Whence false and quaint, I know,
- Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;
- For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.
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- Come then, Giovanni, try
- To succour my dead pictures and my fame;
- Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.
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The image of God in the act of Creation was painted in a single day, and reflects Michelangelo himself in the act of creating the ceiling
Micro Bibliography
Micro Bibliography
- Buonarotti, Michelangelo; Campanella, Tommaso (1878). Project Gutenberg EBooks. 10314. Translated by John Addington Symonds. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
