The work was exposed to view upon November 1, 1509. So at the longest possible estimate of time from May 10, 1508, to November 1, 1509, Michael Angelo took four hundred and sixty-two working days to paint it. The more probable, in fact, almost certain estimate of the time occupied in painting the fresco, as we now see it, is from the time his assistants left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the same year, or two hundred and thirty-four working days. As the plaster could only be painted on whilst wet, we can tell, by the marks of the divisions between the separate days' plasterings, how many days the larger individual figures took. One of the largest and most prominent, as well as one of the finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was painted in three sittings only. The lines of the junctions of the plaster may be seen in a photograph; one is along the collar bone, and one across the junction of the body and the thighs. There is also a division all round the figure, an inch or so from the outline, so we know that the beautiful and highly finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and arms in another; and the huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third. Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day. Some will even excuse the imperfection of the study of a head by saying that they had only three or four sittings.

When Pope Julius prevented Michael Angelo from going on with his beloved project of the Tomb and made him paint the vault, the master set to work to produce a similar conception to the Tomb in a painted form. The vault became a great temple of painted marble and painted sculptures raised in mid-air above the walls of the chapel. The cornices and pilasters are of simple Renaissance architecture, the only ornaments he allowed himself to use being similar to those he would have used as a sculptor. Acorns, the family device of the della Rovere, rams' skulls, and scallop shells, and the one theme of decoration that Michael Angelo always delighted in—the human figure. The Prophets and Sibyls took the positions occupied by the principal figures designed for the Tomb, like the great statue of Moses. The Athletes at the corner of the ribs of the roof were in place of the bound captives, two of which are now in the Louvre, and the nine histories of the Creation and the Flood fill the panels like the bronze reliefs of the Tomb. The detail and completeness of this fresco are the best refutation of the [pg 168]frequent criticism that Michael Angelo did not finish his work. The fact is, that he finished more than any one. Had Michael Angelo done no work but this vault of the Sistine Chapel, it would have represented an output equal in quantity alone to that of the most prolific of his brother Italian artists. It is veritably a large picture-gallery of his works in itself. An idea of its numerical magnitude may be got by dividing it up into its component units and making an inventory of them. The vault itself, according to Heath Wilson, is one hundred and thirty-one feet six inches long, by forty-five feet two and a half inches wide at the large door end, and forty-three feet two and a half inches at the altar end, an area of nearly six thousand square feet, which apparently does not represent the arch measurement but only the plane covered by the arch, nor does it take account of the triangular and semicircular spaces above the windows. This vast surface is divided into:—

Four large pictures stretching over more than one-third of the width of the roof, and containing from five to more than forty-five figures, some of them twelve feet in height.

Five pictures, half the size of the last, with from one to eight figures in each.

Twenty colossal nude figures of Athletes.

Ten circular medallions.

Seven large figures of Prophets.

Five large figures of Sibyls; these Prophets and Sibyls would be eighteen feet high if they stood upright, and most of them have secondary figures of angel boys between them, twenty-three in all.

Twenty-four decorative pilasters of two children each, in monochrome.

Four large triangular compositions representing the Redemptions of Israel, and containing from five to twenty-two colossal figures.

Eight triangular spaces above the windows, representing the Ancestors of Christ, containing from two to four colossal figures.

Twenty-four groups in the semicircular spaces above the windows, also of the Ancestors of Christ, of from one to four colossal figures.

Ten large figures of children forming brackets under the figures of Prophets and Sibyls, at the springing of the arches between the windows.

Twenty-four bronze-coloured colossal figures filling up the spaces in the architectural framework.

Thus, the vault may be regarded as a gallery of one hundred and forty-five separate pictures by Michael Angelo. There is one reservation, and that is, that the twenty-four groups of two children forming pilasters are in pairs, of the same outline but reversed; as they are differently lighted they may still be taken as different pictures. These pilasters form the sides of the thrones of the Prophets and Sibyls, and repeating them in reversed outline on either side of the same throne has a very valuable decorative effect, well known to the old Italian workmen, who frequently repeated the forms of their fruit and flower decorations in this manner, by the expedient of reversing the paper-pricking from one and the same cartoon. It is interesting to find Michael Angelo resorting to this simple trick to get the effect of balance in figure decoration. The light and shade of the reversed figures follow the general scheme of the illumination, so that the figures traced from the same cartoons look very dissimilar when painted, but if the [pg 170]outlines are traced from a photograph, and reversed on the corresponding figures, they will be seen to coincide. It seems impossible to explain the exactness in any other way, a few measurements on the vault itself would make it certain. Probably the same method was employed in transferring the twenty-four bronze-coloured decorative figures also.

The historical sequence of the events in the nine pictures on the central space of the vault represents the Story of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the second entry of Sin into the world, demonstrating the need for a scheme of Salvation, promised by the Prophets and Sibyls in the second part of the decoration. The series represented is an old invention, and all the scenes may be found in Byzantine and early Italian works; but the new treatment gives them a character of grandeur only equalled by the Old Testament narrative which they illustrate. All the human figures and most of the angels appear to be dominated by an idea of impending doom, but they nobly act their part in a fateful present, although they know that the future cannot be changed by any effort of theirs, however noble it may be. They are all fatalists, but all noble in their pessimism; they reflect the mind of the artist. The individual motives of the figures, their grouping and their action, are frequently taken from earlier art, especially sculpture, and they show how carefully and reverently Michael Angelo studied the works of his predecessors, Massaccio, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and Jacopo della Quercia.

The first division above the High Altar represents the creation of light. God separates light from darkness, and brings order out of chaos. In the second division, one of the larger pictures, God creates the sun and moon; He [pg 171]passes on and spreads His hand in blessing over a segment of the earth where the trees and herbs spring forth. In the third, God gathers together in one place the waters which were under the firmament. In these works Michael Angelo designed a figure of the Creator that has remained ever since the only possible pictorial symbol of God the Father. He is like an old man in appearance and in wisdom, but as alert and powerful as a young man. The creation of Adam is the central composition of the ceiling. The Deity, accompanied by six angels, gives life to Adam by the touch of finger tips. The figure of Adam is the most beautiful in modern art. It appears to have been inspired by a Greek intaglio. The angels are much varied in type. They are without the tinsel and gold embroidery used by earlier artists to represent celestial glory. The simple and solemn lines of the landscape showing the curved surface of the globe give a cosmic character to the scene, and the beautiful indigo blue of the distance forms a fine background for the supremely modelled flesh. This composition is the first in the order of execution in which Michael Angelo fully realised his scheme of decoration, as to scale and form, making a few figures fill the space allotted to them with ease and freedom of movement. Truly the space occupied appears to have been arranged and cut specially to suit the figures, and not the figures made, as was the fact, to fit the space. The next compartment, the creation of Eve, is only less beautiful than that of the Adam. It is small, and the space is a little crowded: the composition is taken exactly from the beautiful bas-relief by Jacopo della Quercia at Bologna. The Almighty is shrouded in a voluminous mantle; Eve joins her hands in worship. The figure is modelled with [pg 172]a delicious softness, and the pearly colour is a delightful rendering of the lighter flesh tints of woman, something like the quality sought by Correggio in later times. The Adam reclining in the corner fills that part of the space as a good medal design fits its circumference; the grey of the shadow, especially in the darker parts, envelops the figures in a way that had never been attempted in fresco painting, but is somewhat like a hand in shadow by Rembrandt. The representations of the Fall and the Expulsion fill the next compartment, a large one. Here we have another rendering of a female nude; the type, and especially the modelling of the flank, is a prophecy of the figure of Dawn in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo. The upper part of the serpent has a woman's form, and the junction is most admirably managed after the manner of the sea maidens in GrÆco-Roman art. In this story is the only foreground tree in full leaf ever painted by Michael Angelo, and yet it is as supreme as everything else. It is remarkable that the Paradise of Michael Angelo should be such a rocky place, like the side of a marble mountain, for in his time such places were regarded with distaste. The landscape into which Adam and Eve are expelled is a lone flat desert, where no marble could be found. This part of the composition is taken almost exactly from Massaccio's version in the Brancacci Chapel. The Sacrifice of Noah fills the next, a smaller compartment. It is placed, historically, before the Deluge, and must be taken to represent how Noah, the just man and perfect, and his family, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. As there are five male persons present, this scene cannot represent the sacrifice immediately after the Flood, nor is any rainbow to be seen as was usual in the traditional representations of that subject, [pg 173]like the one in the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella. Raphael also gives more figures than can be accounted for as having been in the ark in his composition of the sacrifice of Noah, in the series called the Bible of Raphael in the Loggia. The large composition of the Deluge gives us some idea of what the cartoon of Pisa may have been like. There never was a collection of naked figures so many and so beautiful. One is filled with sorrow at the idea of their being drowned. They are all, too, engaged in noble works; charity, energy, and inventiveness are amongst the virtues they exhibit; there is no panic, or struggling one with another; no anger or selfishness, excepting only in the boat in the middle distance; a woman helps her children, a man his wife, an old man bears a young man in his arms, Priam carrying Æneas, an even more pathetic imagination than Homer's; others attempt to save their household goods; others erect a tent; others, again, attempt to scale the sides of the ark or break into it with axes—one cannot but hope they will succeed. The female figures are especially beautiful in this picture, and again we have a foretaste of that wonderful modelling of the flank and thigh seen to perfection in the tombs at San Lorenzo. The weird sea and sky, the ark and the dead tree, show what Michael Angelo could do when he liked, in departments of art other than the human figure. The individual figures in the Deluge are difficult to see on account of the smallness of scale in this part of the vault. It must have been after seeing them from the floor of the chapel, by removing some of the boards of his scaffolding, that Michael Angelo determined to alter the scale in the remaining compositions. In no other way can we account for the change in the size of the Athletes, at [pg 174]any rate. The difference of scale between those surrounding the Sin of Ham over the large door, and those surrounding the separation of Light from Darkness over the High Altar, must be almost two feet. The increase is gradual along the ceiling. Similarly the Sybilla Delphica is very much smaller than the Sybilla Lybica, and the Prophet Joel than the Prophet Jeremiah. The last composition of this series—a small one—represents the Sin of Ham, and was the first painted. The vat and the wine jug are wonderful still-life, reminding us of Bassano.

The twenty Athletes that decorate the corners of these central compositions, and support bronze medallions held in place by oak garlands or by draperies, are nothing but the most direct of transcripts from the nude model, but the most noble that have been executed in the art of painting. They are finished to the smallest detail, and are as truthful to nature as it was possible for a man with an innate sense of grandeur of line to make them. Italian models have been posed in the positions of most of them, and drawings from them compared with the photographs of these figures; they are marvellously true, to the very wrinkles of the skin under the arms and about the knees, and the drawing of the curves and creases of the torso as the body bends. So naturalistic are they that Michael Angelo must have posed a model and made drawings in the chapel itself, perhaps even on the scaffolding, and worked straight away. He appears to have used only three models for this purpose. The Athletes drawn from the same model can easily be distinguished; they are actual portraits. One was the man who sat for the Adam, and was of a noble proportion with a small head, a beautiful brow, and a solemn mouth. His hair was wavy and of a wispy character; he [pg 175]had broad shoulders; his extremities were small, the thighs large and well developed, showing the individual muscles by large forms with flat planes. He may be seen, as we have said, in the Adam, and in the four figures surrounding the fresco representing God dividing the Light from the Darkness; in the two figures near the Adam in his creation of Eve; and best of all, for comparison, in the figures near the foot of Adam in the creation of Man. Another model was of a rounder and more bacchanalian character, not unlike the Dancing Fawn in the Uffizi; but he was not in such good training. He was decidedly fat, his face was mobile, and very easily took jovial expressions, his cheeks dimpled, his eyes round and large, the pupils very dark and the whites very white; his hair went into short, soft, frizzy curls; his shoulders were small and round, the arms feeble, the thighs short, round, and formless; his back was well developed, the folds of the skin in the torso, when he bent, were very large and fat in line. It was probably for this that Michael Angelo chose him. He is well seen in three of the figures surrounding the third panel from the High Altar representing The Spirit of God upon the Face of the Waters, and the two figures nearest to the Adam and Eve in the scene of the Expulsion. The other model was of more ordinary but of still very fine proportion. His head was rather large, and his mouth petulant in expression, the upper eyelids very thick; his hair is broken into large, hard curls. He is seen in the figures surrounding the Sin of Ham, and was probably the first employed for this work. These Athletes are the very epitome of the work of Michael Angelo. If a man does not love them he cannot care for the work of Michael Angelo. They express his highest idea of beauty—man [pg 176]created in the image of God, as he testifies in this vault, and in the sonnet ending:—

A great cornice divides the scheme of the flat part of the vault already described, and perhaps the first portion executed, from the curved part containing the Prophets and Sibyls. They are larger in scale and freer in style than any portion of the flat part of the vault, as though with practice Michael Angelo's hand had grown even bolder than before. He may, too, have thought the new scale of figures easier to see from the floor of the chapel, for we must remember that this was his first experiment in vault painting, and no doubt he would be glad to see its effect from below when he was ordered to remove the [pg 177]scaffolding, and he must have learnt by it. The Prophets and Sibyls appear to be the last word of Michael Angelo in decorative painting, as Raphael knew, for he assimilated the teaching both in the beautiful figures of Sibyls at Santa Maria della Pace and the Prophet Isaiah of San Agostino. The motives of the genii or angels, wise children whispering in the ears of the foretellers, seem to be inspired by the sculpture of Giovanni Pisano as seen in the pilasters of the pulpit of the Church of San Andrea at Pistoia.

It would be endless to try and tell all the thoughts and emotions, both literary and artistic, suggested by the contemplation of these figures and by the groups representing the Ancestors of Christ. Suffice it to say, that all the thoughts that come into the minds of the beholders are as nothing compared to the thoughts that passed through the mind of the solitary artist composing and painting upon the high scaffolding of the quiet chapel.

The series of the Ancestors of Christ illustrate the life of a being upon this earth, from the terrible moment when the pregnant woman first feels the pangs of approaching labour, in the semicircle of the window (inscribed Roboam, Abias) to the lean and slippered pantaloon, who needs a stick to help him rise from his seat (over the window inscribed Salmon, Boaz, Obeth); there is the happy mother sleeping with her infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes (Salmon, Boaz, Obeth); and the old man playing with the children, (Eleazr, Matthew); the student attentively poring over his book regardless of the female figure, possibly Inspiration, speaking to him from the other side of the window (Naason). These figures, the Ancestors of Christ, are more slightly painted than the rest of the vault. They loom out of the darkness, caused by contrast to the light of the [pg 178]windows they surround, grow in and out of the background and have an atmospheric effect unequalled in fresco painting. Those who walk from the Ponte Saint Angelo up the Borgo to the Vatican any morning early may see at the back of the dim recesses of the arched cellar-like shops such groups as these. The series may be regarded as the sketch-book of Michael Angelo, in which he recorded his impressions of the life about him as he trudged to his work.

The four triangular compositions that fill the corners of the chapel, the four great Redemptions of Israel, are absolute masterpieces of space arrangement, different methods of overcoming the same difficulty being used in each picture, from the two principal figures and the tent in the David and Goliath to the marvellous crowd of twisted limbs in the story of the Brazen Serpent. In the composition of the Death of Holofernes Judith covers with a napkin the severed head, which is carried in a basket on the head of her handmaid; a most lovely group, said to have been taken from an intaglio representing a vintage scene, in which a nymph fills with grapes a basket supported on the head of a companion.

Under each of the Prophets and Sibyls, upon the side walls, is a decorative putto supporting the name plate, standing at the springing of the arches, as in Donatello's bas-relief representing Christ before Pilate, in the pulpit of San Lorenzo. These ten beautiful figures are seldom noticed, but evidently Raphael thought them worthy of study, as may be seen in the lovely child-figure attributed to him in the Accademia di San Lucca.

The whole vault contains hardly one unworthy human being, the only sins they commit are the Sins of Adam [pg 179]and of Ham, necessary for the story. They are all beautiful and all holy. Can Michael Angelo have had any thought of the doom of these his creations, as exemplified by him on the altar wall, twenty-two years afterwards? The great work was finished, the public saw it, and, as Michael Angelo says, "the Pope was very well pleased."