Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Renaissance balance and symmetry reign. Christ is the center of the composition,
flanked by two equally leaning people who support his body with strips of cloth. They, in
turn, are flanked by two others.
The painting is not damaged, but it is unfinished. Michelangelo, 25 years old at the
time, moved on to other projects before he got around to adding crucial details, even leav-
ing a blank space in the lower right where Mary would have been.
Regardless of the lack of detail, Michelangelo lets the bodies do the talking. The two
supporters strain to hold up Christ's body, and in their tension we, too, feel the great
weight and tragedy of their dead god. Michelangelo expresses the divine through the hu-
man form.
Raphael— Pope Julius II (1511)
The new worldliness of the Renaissance even reached the Church. Pope Julius II, who was
more a swaggering conquistador than a pious pope, set out to rebuild Rome in Renaissance
style, hiring Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
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