Michaelangelo    Michaelangelo (or more properly Michelangelo Buonarroti) was hired by Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the work was completed by 1512. Michaelangelo considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter, despite his incredible talent as an artist with paint.    The job of painting the ceiling in the chapel was immensely difficult. First of all, the ceiling was curved, which meant that the paintings would have to be drawn distorted in order to be viewed correctly. Also, all the paintings were to be viewed from the floor, a distance down of over 50 feet, which meant that small details would have to be enhanced.    On top of all this, Michaelangelo had to do all the work while lying upside down on the top of a scaffold, close up to the works. In fact, the first section he completed, the illustration of Noah and the flood, does not look quite right from the floor below. He had forgotten that the viewer would be trying to make out the image from a distance. As he progressed to later images he got it right. Self-portrait    Michaelangelo had assistants who moistened the plaster first, carried his equipment up the ladders, and who helped prepare the paints. Michaelangelo himself made full-size pencil sketches, distorted so they would view correctly on a curved surface from below, of every panel first. These were attached to the ceiling and small perforations were made through the sketch onto the plaster. He used these perforations to complete the sketches on the plaster before painting. Altogether the ceiling contains over 460 square metres of surface, which Michaelangelo covered with his paintings.    The inspiration which guided Michaelangelo to create some of the world's most beautiful images was his religion. The Sistine Chapel ceiling and walls contain Michaelangelo's story of the Christian history of mankind. The Pope wanted Michaelangelo to paint Jesus' 12 disciples, but instead he painted scenes from the book of Genesis, such as 'God Separating Light From Darkness', 'The Creation of Adam', 'The Creation of Eve', 'The Temptation and fall of Adam and Eve', and 'The Flood'. In all he painted more than 3000 figures. Back