Fig. 200. Michelangelo. The Temptation and Expulsion from Eden.
Perhaps the most decorative subject, if one may use the word of themes so morally impressive, is that which represents the sin of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion from Eden, Figure [200]. The elements of pathos which are strong in the story of Genesis are absent. Michelangelo has not deigned to show us a habitable or desirable Eden. We see instead the swiftly changing episodes of a great doom, which culminates in this scene. Marvelous are the paired groups, superb the contrast between careless appetite under the tree of knowledge and utter shame in the exiled pair. One feels that Eve, who shrinks most, will soonest recover. Her mission is still valid in the world of sin and shame. The composition is the first one made up entirely of nudes.
We may pass quickly over the three compartments devoted to the story of Noah. The scale of the figures, especially in the Deluge, is too small to count at the distance from the eye. These three frescoes were the beginning of the work, the proper scale being arrived at through trial and error. Inherently the two small oblongs are among the most beautiful in the ceiling, having a stylistic grace that is less marked in the earlier more august themes. With the charm of Greek intaglios these stories of Noah combine monumentality.
Fig. 201. Michelangelo. The Prophet Jeremiah.
I have tried to put myself in the position of a visitor to the Sistine Chapel following the instincts of his eye. At this point, having glanced over the ceiling, his mind might well come in and ask the meaning of a whole of which he is becoming dimly aware. The nine scenes above are simply the historic axioms upon which the Christian scheme of redemption is based. The abstract sparseness of the nine episodes from Genesis is justified by the fact that they are less human events than terms in a great argument, which runs as follows: We were created innocent, sinned in our first parents, were spared in the world-flood and promised eventual redemption.
This prolonged drama of redemption is witnessed by a solemn chorus of draped male and female figures enthroned impressively in the spandrels. Here, representing respectively the pagan and Hebrew world, are seven sibyls and five prophets who had the dim but certain vision of a coming Redeemer. These figures as Hawthorne has well said are “necessarily so gigantic because the weight of thought within them is so massive.” They brood quietly or sway with the burden of yearning. They are magnificently draped and contrast most decoratively with the many nudes of the ceiling. They vary in age and disposition. Contrast the actively inspired and youthful Daniel, or the fiery Ezechiel with the ponderous gravity of Jeremiah, Figure [201]. What shades of delicate characterization are in the athletic loveliness of the Delphic Sibyl, Figure [202], the powerfully concentrated senility of The Cumean Sibyl, she who predicted to Virgil the new era of salvation, and the aristocratic aloofness of the Libyan seeress, Figure [203], most daintily preparing her day’s work in divination.
Fig. 202. Michelangelo. The Delphic Sibyl.