Burdened already with the impossible task of the tomb of Julius II, Michelangelo was called to Rome to fresco the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Contemporary gossip believed that he was proposed by the jealous and shifty Bramante, architect of St. Peter’s, in the hope of discrediting him. If so, Bramante reckoned ill. At first Michelangelo planned a very modest scheme of colossal figures of Apostles in the twelve spandrels. Soon, dismissing his incompetent helpers, he attacked single-handed the present great scheme. He worked at it four bitter years, and came out of it temporarily crippled and with eyes distorted from the constant strain of looking upwards. The ceiling was unveiled on All Saint’s Day of 1512 and has been a portent ever since.
Fig. 197. Michelangelo. The two Western Compartments of the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: God parting Light from Darkness; God creating the Sea and Plants. Example of the Decorative Scheme.
Enter the Sistine Chapel, turn your back to the overwhelming apparition of the Last Judgment, and your eye will naturally seek the lightest part of the rich decoration. In a long strip, down the centre of the ceiling, made up of nine oblongs alternately large and small, colossal figures stand out against the sky. We see the drama of the Creation and Fall of man. Nude titans play the minor parts in so many simultaneous scenes. The gigantic, draped form of the Eternal dominates the first five. We see him an aged athlete, an expression of utmost physical force, rending chaos asunder into light and darkness; by his touch illumining the sun and moon; Figure [197], drawing out the plants from the earth. I know no more sublime conception in painting than the figure of God assigning the oceans their place, Figure [198]. Here is a form that would weigh tons hovering with the lightness of an eagle in space, with extended beneficent arms as solid as reality but coaxed out of the wet plaster with touch and hues as delicate as those of a Whistler symphony. A miracle of conception and of workmanship.
Fig. 198. Michelangelo. God hovering over the Waters. Shows the decorative use of the so-called “Slaves.”—Vatican.
Fig. 199. Michelangelo. Creation of Adam.
The eye will dwell longest on the great fresco of the Creation of Adam, Figure [199]. It is all noble energy in the figure of God giving life by His touch, all noble languor in the relaxed form of Adam only dimly conscious of himself and wistful. There could be no truer or more striking illustration of the pessimistic view that life was imposed upon the earth and brought sadness with it. The titan form of Adam has a singular and enigmatic relaxation. He undergoes a gift he has never besought and faces it with something between confusion, mistrust and resignation. Perhaps the splendid body would have been more at ease, had the soul not been added. So in a spirit of Christian pessimism Michelangelo represents Deity sharing its divine powers with the first man.
At the centre of the ceiling is the creation of Eve, again an extraordinary study in lassitude, but with a significant difference in the figure of Eve. The woman, the chosen receptacle and transmitter of life, accepts the gift eagerly. She presses up to God in thankful adoration. No doubts or ambiguities here. And what a figure—fit to be the mother of a race, exulting already in a fecundity that is to be most grievous. Compare her action with the languid and almost disdainful gesture of Adam in the last fresco, and learn that if the world is still peopled it is due to the unreflective and unshaken fealty to life of all Eve’s true daughters.