Existing comment:
The Nude Body and the Last Judgment
In 1533 Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to return to the Sistine Chapel, the most prominent ceremonial site for the papal court, to paint an enormous Last Judgment fresco on the wall behind the altar. The project continued during the papacy of Paul III, Michelangelo's greatest patron in his later years and one who gave him immense artistic freedom. He produced drawings for the fresco over a protracted period, beginning in 1533 with the first compositional sketches and life drawings and continuing with the revision of partial cartoons and other designs until about 1540.
Controversy erupted soon after the public unveiling of the Last Judgment in December 1541, focused primarily on the nudity of the figures. The spread of the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe had elicited a strong conservative reaction from the Roman Catholic Church, culminating in the Council of Trent (1545–63) and a new era of censures. As even the sharpest critics conceded, however, the Last Judgment is a celebration of all that art can accomplish in depicting the human body. Although denounced as blasphemous, Michelangelo's emphasis on the beauty of the physical form alludes in a personal, if unorthodox, way to the religious doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead. |