Last Judgment

Last Judgment

Last Judgement

View: Interior showing ceiling and altar wall (Last Judgment)

New Testament; saints; Jesus Christ; Paul III, Pope, 1468-1549; second coming of Christ; apocalypse; damned

Michelangelo’s commission to decorate the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel dates from 1534, the final year of Clement VII’s pontificate. According to Vasari, the project was taken over without alteration by his successor, the Farnese pope Paul III. For a papal establishment already chastened by the Sack of Rome, it seems likely that the fresco was intended as a powerful reminder of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. Two factors contributed to the impact of this message: the fresco’s unusual position on the altar wall (representations of the Last Judgement were normally placed on the entrance wall of ecclesiastical buildings) and the removal of Perugino’s altarpiece, with its comforting image of the Virgin, as the focal point of the chapel.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian painter, 1475-1564)

Description: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/

1535-1541 (creation)

Fredlund, William

publicDomain

part of Sistine Chapel

pigment on plaster

539.3 in (height) x 472.4 in (width)

fresco (painting)

mich186x.jpg

Sistine Chapel (Rome (Vatican City), Santa Sede (Holy See), Italy); Palace of the Vatican

Renaissance