tour 22 of 24
Michelangelo's drawings
The Last Judgement
In 1534 Michelangelo returned to Rome, where he
spent the last thirty years of his life. He had been invited back
by Pope Clement VII to paint the altar wall in the Sistine chapel.
The resulting work, his Last
Judgement, was a highly original, if
controversial,
masterpiece.
The Last
Judgement was a common theme in church art, but
Michelangelo's interpretation was new and, to some members
of the church, very shocking. His Apocalypse is filled with
muscular naked figures and dynamic, often violent, action. Although
he took great care to strip the nude figures of their sensuality,
calls for censorship meant that drapery was painted on some of the
figures after Michelangelo's
death.
After the
Last Judgement, Pope
Paul III asked Michelangelo to paint the Pauline chapel in the
Vatican Palace. These frescoes - the last he painted - were
finished in 1550 when he was aged seventy-five. After this he
worked mainly as an architect, an area he was involved in from 1546
when Paul III asked him to complete the Farnese Palace in Rome.
However, it was the building of St Peter's that occupied
him most, and his design for the basilica is one of his greatest
achievements.
Michelangelo
continued to work to within a week of his death at the age of
eighty-eight. He left extremely detailed documentation of his life
- about 1400 letters along with hundreds of notes of his expenses
and financial transactions - providing a unique insight into his
daily
life.
Illustration:
A flying angel and other
studies by Michelangelo, drawn around
1534-36.