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Lipa 1 the Reaction to the Last Judgment Joseph Lipa History Of Lipa 1 The Reaction to the Last Judgment Joseph Lipa History of Art 351 Professor Willette April 29, 2013 Lipa 2 From the moment of its unveiling on All Hallow’s Eve in 1541 to its near demolition in the decades to follow, Michelangelo’s famed Last Judgment evoked a reaction only surpassed in variety by the human figure it depicted. Commissioned six years before by Pope Paul III, this colossal fresco of the resurrection of the body at the end of the world spanned the altar wall of the same Sistine Chapel whose ceiling Michelangelo had painted some twenty years earlier. Whether stunned by its intricacy, sobered by its content, or even scandalized by its apparent indecency, sixteenth-century minds could not stop discussing what was undoubtedly both the most famous and the most controversial work of its day. “This work is the true splendor of all Italy and of artists, who come from the Hyperborean ends of the earth to see and draw it,” exclaimed Italian Painter Gian Paolo Lomazzo, nonetheless one of the fresco’s fiercest critics.”1 To be sure, neither Lomazzo nor any of Michelangelo’s contemporaries doubted his artistic skill. On the contrary, it was precisely Michelangelo’s unparalleled ability to depict the nude human body that caused the work to be as severely criticized by some as it was highly praised by others. While critics and acclaimers alike often varied in their motives, the polarizing response to the Last Judgment can only be adequately understood in light of the unique religious circumstances of its time. Indeed, the controversy and eventual censorship of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece reveals that for Europe in the late sixteenth century a distinct era was coming to a close—and another dramatically different one just beginning. If Michelangelo had known how famous his fresco was to become, he perhaps would have been far less reluctant to begin it. Both Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi, Michelangelo’s principle biographers, imply in their Vitae that Michelangelo was originally unenthusiastic about the pope’s commission, preferring instead to keep his existing contract with the Duke of Urbino to complete the Tomb of Pope Julius II.2, 3 According to Condivi, when Paul Lipa 3 learned of this he became angry: “For thirty years now I have had this wish and, now that I am Pope, can I not gratify it? Where is this contract? I want to tear it up.”4 Far from being dissuaded by the artist’s prior commitment, Paul resolved even harder to obtain his service. Only after journeying personally to Michelangelo’s house did the pope get his wish, and even then under the express condition that the agreement with the duke be rewritten to allow the new patronage.5 Unfortunately, additional details surrounding the commission are sparse. According to Michelangelo scholar Anthony Hughes, “Not even a contract survives, but [Paul’s] motuproprio of 1535 which names Michelangelo as supreme artist to the papacy mentions that he is to paint ‘the altar wall of Our Chapel with the picture and history of the Last Judgment.’”6 After initial preparation of the painting surface, work on the fresco began in 1536 and ended in 1541, during which time the aged Michelangelo fell off the scaffolding on at least one occasion.7 Soon after completion, the fresco was publically displayed on October 31 when Paul celebrated a Mass for the vigil of All Saints at the main altar of the Sistine Chapel. In the words of Hughes, to the sixteenth-century Roman viewer the unveiled fresco “must have represented a shock.”8 The Last Judgment (Figure 1) depicts Michelangelo’s conception of the scene at the end of the world when all of humanity will be judged by Christ. Paralleling Christ’s own bodily resurrection, Christian doctrine holds that on the last day the bodies of the dead will rise from the ground to be reunited with their souls. According to Chapter 25 of the book of Matthew, Christ will then judge each according to his deeds: All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. .Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Lipa 4 This general judgment of all of humanity at the end of time should be distinguished from an individual soul’s particular judgment at the moment of his death. The general judgment can never reverse the particular judgment, but only confirms it publically before the whole world. According to Catholic theology, this is necessary “in order that the justice, wisdom, and mercy of God may be glorified in the presence of all.”9 For its part, Michelangelo’s fresco represents the full deployment of the artist’s talents in depicting the dread, anticipation, glory, and terror of that fateful day. The work is best described in sections corresponding to the chronological order of the judgment. In the lower center foreground are the seven angels from Saint John’s Apocalypse blowing their trumpets to awaken the dead and summon them for judgment. Two additional angels stand nearby, together holding open a large book upon which is presumably inscribed all the deeds of humanity. Wingless, muscular, and semi-nude, the angelic figures appear unmistakably different from their popular representations in contemporary Renaissance art. The next scene chronologically is the lower left of the fresco, where foreground and background alike depict the naked bodies of the dead rising in every possible contortion out of the ground. A spiritual battle ensues as the risen figures are simultaneously pulled upward towards heaven by angels and downward back into the ground by demons. Ultimately proving overpowering, the angels draw the bodies up along the side of the altar wall and eventually over to the Just Judge in the top-center of the fresco. Disproportionately oversized and prominently located, Christ is undoubtedly the center of attention (Figure 2). Adding to his captivating size and location is his unconventional portrayal—Christ is young, beardless, and, it appears, angry. Standing on a grey cloud, his right hand is raised in judgment and his eyes are directed downward toward the damned. Even the Virgin Mary, depicted in rose and light blue immediately next to Christ, clings to him in apparent fear, as if to forestall by her Lipa 5 intercession the just wrath of her son. As Renaissance scholar Linda Murray notes, Michelangelo was no doubt inspired by the words of the Dies Irae, the hallmark funerary chant of the Catholic Requiem Mass, which begins: Day of wrath and doom impending, David’s word with Sibyl’s blending, Heaven and earth in ashes ending! Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth, When from heaven the Judge descendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth. Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth, Through earth’s sepulchres it ringeth, All before the throne it bringeth. Death is struck, and nature quaking, All creation is awaking, To its Judge an answer making.10 According to Murray, it is this traditional Christian conception of judgment together with Michelangelo’s own “vision of the horror and clamor of terror and rejoicing, expressed by his supreme ability to represent the human form in movement” that combine to make his Last Judgment truly astounding.11 Continuing chronologically from the central reference point of Christ, the remaining areas of the fresco primarily concern the fate of those already judged. Surrounding Christ in glory are several well-known saints, identified primarily by their instruments of martyrdom. Saint Lawrence, for example, fearlessly wields the rack upon which he was roasted alive. Saint Bartholomew, for his part, triumphantly displays in one hand the knife with which he was flayed and in the other his skin itself, a pelt into which, oddly enough, Michelangelo incorporated his own self-portrait. Other recognizable saints are Saint John the Baptist to Christ’s right, carrying his traditional hair shirt, and Saint Peter, his mirror image on the left, holding the keys to the Lipa 6 kingdom. A few figures below and to the right, Saints Blaise of Sebaste and Catherine of Alexandria stand atop the bottommost cluster of the gray clouds that define the lower boundary of heaven. The great majority of the elect, however, are anonymous and only recognizable as saved by their proximity to or motion toward Christ. More than the intrinsic characteristics of the figures themselves, it is rather these extrinsic features that assist the viewer in distinguishing the realm of the blessed from that of the condemned. Accordingly, the lower right of the fresco is devoted to the doom of the damned. After having been rejected by Christ, these bodies are seen dragged down by demons to their eternal punishment in hell (Figure 3). In terror one man covers his left eye in an attempt to avoid seeing the fate he cannot escape. Another hurls headlong into the abyss surrounded by devils on every side. Despite the dramatic contrast with the blessed above, Michelangelo nevertheless incorporates some of the same stylistic conceptions into the figures of the condemned. Like the saved, the damned are depicted nude; however, it is a nudity resulting from exposure and shame as opposed to that allowed by the lack of concupiscence in heaven.
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