DOI chapter:
Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Engravers, and their Works
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61295#0180
158
BUONAROTTL
for a monument to Pope Julius. The end of all was, that the Pope
satisfied the Duke of Urbino, and Michael Angelo began to paint the
chapel. He worked at this six years without assistance. Of all the
frescoes of the sixteenth century, perhaps none has suffered more
from the ravages of time, and at the hands of men, than this paint-
ing. Copies and engravings make it possible to imagine what was
once there. But the overpowering effect which its first sight
should produce is lost. The sentiments of the world, too, are so
changed that such a representation cannot appeal to us as it must
have done to those to whom Michael Angelo preached with his
brush. In this work he gave form, and presented to the sight what
Dante had pictured to the imagination. Like everything else which
is symbolic, it is meaningless if we cannot supply its meaning from
our own souls. “ As we look, however, at the ‘ Last Judgment,’ on
the wall of the Sistine Chapel, it is no longer a similitude to us, but
a monument to the imaginative spirit of a past age, and a strange
people, whose ideas are no longer ours” Much of importance to
the world occurred during the painting of this picture. The Flor-
entines in Rome endeavored to regain their old liberty. The Refor-
mation was at work in Germany, and a circle of distinguished men
surrounded the Pope, and conferred unusual lustre upon the society
of the Vatican. Among these men was Michael Angelo; not that
he mingled constantly with them, for he gave himself no rest, but he
knew their thoughts and hopes, and sympathized with those who
would have brought about a reconciliation between the Lutherans
and the Church. In 1537 or 1538, the old Ludovic died, and Mi-
chael Angelo was shaken in his very soul by this sorrow. It was
on this occasion that he wrote his beautiful sonnet commencing, —
“Already had I wept and sighed so much
I thought all grief forever at an end,
Exhaled in sighs, shed forth in bitter tears.”
This poem gives us an insight into the religious belief of Michael
Angelo. He makes no reference to purgatory, but urges the grace
of God (la grazia Divina), and speaks of the certainty of the perfect
happiness of his father. This involved the question which was
agitating the Christian world, yet in his thought he seems not to
recognize the possibility of a doubt. Before this, when his brother
had died, he wrote, “ Although all those sacraments which the Church
enjoins were not administered to him, yet if he showed true repent-
ance and resignation to the will of God, that is sufficient for his
eternal blessedness.” At another time he wrote to his brother to
inquire out some case where he could do good secretly; for he wished
to do something for the welfare of his own soul, but desired that it
should be known to no one. From all this the healthiness of his
nature appears. There was no sentimentality or overstraining, but
a trustful and obedient dependence upon God. The Sistine Chapel
BUONAROTTL
for a monument to Pope Julius. The end of all was, that the Pope
satisfied the Duke of Urbino, and Michael Angelo began to paint the
chapel. He worked at this six years without assistance. Of all the
frescoes of the sixteenth century, perhaps none has suffered more
from the ravages of time, and at the hands of men, than this paint-
ing. Copies and engravings make it possible to imagine what was
once there. But the overpowering effect which its first sight
should produce is lost. The sentiments of the world, too, are so
changed that such a representation cannot appeal to us as it must
have done to those to whom Michael Angelo preached with his
brush. In this work he gave form, and presented to the sight what
Dante had pictured to the imagination. Like everything else which
is symbolic, it is meaningless if we cannot supply its meaning from
our own souls. “ As we look, however, at the ‘ Last Judgment,’ on
the wall of the Sistine Chapel, it is no longer a similitude to us, but
a monument to the imaginative spirit of a past age, and a strange
people, whose ideas are no longer ours” Much of importance to
the world occurred during the painting of this picture. The Flor-
entines in Rome endeavored to regain their old liberty. The Refor-
mation was at work in Germany, and a circle of distinguished men
surrounded the Pope, and conferred unusual lustre upon the society
of the Vatican. Among these men was Michael Angelo; not that
he mingled constantly with them, for he gave himself no rest, but he
knew their thoughts and hopes, and sympathized with those who
would have brought about a reconciliation between the Lutherans
and the Church. In 1537 or 1538, the old Ludovic died, and Mi-
chael Angelo was shaken in his very soul by this sorrow. It was
on this occasion that he wrote his beautiful sonnet commencing, —
“Already had I wept and sighed so much
I thought all grief forever at an end,
Exhaled in sighs, shed forth in bitter tears.”
This poem gives us an insight into the religious belief of Michael
Angelo. He makes no reference to purgatory, but urges the grace
of God (la grazia Divina), and speaks of the certainty of the perfect
happiness of his father. This involved the question which was
agitating the Christian world, yet in his thought he seems not to
recognize the possibility of a doubt. Before this, when his brother
had died, he wrote, “ Although all those sacraments which the Church
enjoins were not administered to him, yet if he showed true repent-
ance and resignation to the will of God, that is sufficient for his
eternal blessedness.” At another time he wrote to his brother to
inquire out some case where he could do good secretly; for he wished
to do something for the welfare of his own soul, but desired that it
should be known to no one. From all this the healthiness of his
nature appears. There was no sentimentality or overstraining, but
a trustful and obedient dependence upon God. The Sistine Chapel