Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

by Dr Ross King (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.23

  In 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He had been advised against doing so. The painting of the vaults was so difficult and Michelangelo so inexperienced in fresco that it was considered a folly. Indeed, Michelangelo himself was reluctant. He considered himself primarily a sculptor rather than a painter. However, for the next four years he would labour over the vast ceiling, at first employing assistants, later working alone; spending back-breaking hours with his face turned upwards. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. There is no other work to compare with this for excellence, nor could there be, wrote Vasari in his Lives of Artists . Ross King's book tells the story of those four extraordinary years. Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems and inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, Michelangelo created figures so beautiful that, when they were unveiled in 1512, they stunned his onlookers. Modern anatomy has yet to find names for some of the muscles on his nudes, they are painted in such detail. From Michelangelo's experiments with the composition of pigment and plaster to his bitter rivalry with Raphael, who was working on the neighbouring Papal Apartments, Ross King paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early 16th-century Rome.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.23

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $4.17

  In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He had been strongly advised against doing so. At 12,000 square feet, the ceiling represented one of the largest such projects ever attempted; and the thirty-three-year-old Michelangelo had very little experience of the physically and technically taxing art of fresco. Indeed, Michelangelo himself was reluctant, considering himself a sculptor rather than a painter. Nevertheless, for the next four years he and a hand-picked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending back-breaking hours on a scaffold fifty feet above the floor. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. 'There is no other work to compare with this for excellence, nor could there be,' wrote Vasari in his Lives of Artists. Ross King's fascinating new book tells the story of those four extraordinary years, Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems and inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, Michelangelo created figures so beautiful that, when they were unveiled in 1512, they stunned onlookers, Working with brushes made from hogs' bristles and pigments manufactured by monks in Florence, he and his assistants painted nudes in such detail that modern anatomy has yet to find names for some of their muscles. From Michelangelo's ground-breaking studies of the human form to his bitter rivalry with Raphael, who was frescoing the neighbouring Papal Apartments, Ross King paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding - and outside, in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome.

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $16.82

  In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The thirty-three-year-old Michelangelo had very little experience of the physically and technically taxing art of fresco; and, at twelve thousand square feet, the ceiling represented one of the largest such projects ever attempted. Nevertheless, for the next four years he and a hand-picked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending back-breaking hours on a scaffold fifty feet above the floor. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. This fascinating book tells the story of those four extraordinary years and paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding - and outside, in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome.