Rebecca Kestenbaum
4/1/11
Italian Renaissance research paper
Professor Schlitt

The cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling was one of the most significant art restorations of the 20th century. The restoration changed the way modern viewers perceive 16th Century artist, Michelangelo, and refutes theories developed over the centuries. Before the restoration, the color and lighting of the Sistine chapel was misleadingly interpreted. Two years after the start of the restoration, Patricia Corbett published “After Centuries of Grime”, an article that revealed new developments about Michelangelo’s masterpiece that were before unknown. Corbett describes Michelangelo as a “brilliant and daring colorist whose bold brushwork is surprisingly impressionistic.” The Sistine ceiling had, for many years, been viewed under a “murky veneer” with false shadows and colors that the artist himself had not intended. As Gianluigi Colalucci, the chief conservator of paintings at the Vatican, and his small team meticulously worked to remove layers of dirt and encrustations, they discovered new developments on his style, technique and use of color. The response of critiques such as Pope John Paul II, a contemporary of Michelangelo of the 16th Century, who viewed the work as the artist intended was allegedly “fantastic, fantastic, absolutely marvelous”. The Pope’s reaction to the newly painted work was likely a response to the vibrant colors and energy radiating from the ceiling. After centuries of grime and filth accumulating on the surface of the Sistine ceiling, the public could not observe the true beauty and color of the work, the way Michelangelo had intended. Through careful precision, first wiping the area with distilled water, and then adding a chemical solvent that is brushed on and wiped off after three minutes, the team of restorers managed to unveil the miraculous masterpiece that rested beneath. The lunettes, which Michelangelo painted along with the ceiling, were for a long time regarded as simple genre scenes of family life, yet after the removal of centuries worth of dirt reveal the artist’s “dazzling palette”. Before the restoration, the artist’s use of color was a factor that influenced the interpretation of the biblical scenes. One art historian, Esther Dotson, categorizes the male nudes of the lunettes into two groups. One group, she claims, are “compressed into the spandrels between the thrones” and possess a bronze-colored appearance. The other set, moves more freely above the entablature that caps the Prophets’ thrones and exhibits the color of living flesh. These observations, recorded in 1979, just before the start of the cleaning are skewed as the “bronze” and “flesh tones” that Dotson is describing are masked by centuries of filth. As the dirt was removed and the 16th Century images emerged, the clarity of the pictures did not always develop. An excerpt from The Burlington Magazine in 1987 illustrates how “some features now appear more blurred, where a pupil or an eyebrow added by an earlier restorer has been removed”. The images are however, as close as possible to the intention of the 16th Century painter. Esther Dotson describes “figures who are compressed into shadowy recesses”. These dark shadows are deceiving as many darkened areas were removed after the restoration of the ceiling, as they were the result of the layer of glue over the fresco that worsened over time.
By 1987, the cleaning of the lunettes had been completed and the restoration of the Sistine ceiling was underway. For centuries, Michelangelo had been criticized as a somber colorist due to his ceiling mural. Evidence that the artist’s work became quickly masked by candle soot, dust, and dirt is owed to accounts of the late 16th and 17th Century. Lodovico Dolce declared “I shall not speak of Michel Angelo’s Colouring, because everyone knows that he took little care in this article.” French artist and theorist Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, too claimed the coloring “is not overly true or very pleasant. He knows not the artifice of lights and shadows.” Michelangelo was further described as sub-par to that of contemporary Raphael and was long praised as a sculptor over a painter. In the early 19th Century, an English painter William Etty contrarily applauded Michelangelo for his serene sense of coloring describing it as almost “Venetian”. Whether lauded or criticized for his coloring techniques, critics were unable to have a true, un-tampered opinion of Michelangelo’s work. Unbeknownst to them, their judgment was skewed by hundreds of years of grime masking the brilliant masterpiece that lay beneath.
Until the restoration that began in 1980, Michelangelo’s specific mural painting technique was unclear. The two basic techniques of fresco painting are buon fresco and a secco. Colalucci has confirmed Michelangelo’s exclusive use of buon fresco in the lunettes and in 99% of the ceiling as well, with additions of a secco in making small repairs. The master himself, believed the a secco technique to be fit for minor alterations. Colalucci does not deny that Michelangelo made changes to his work. He claims that any follower of the artist, aware of his hand, can detect his “exceptional force” and therefore the a secco additions. The cleaning solvent, AB-57, used to restore the Sistine ceiling cannot damage the surface of a buon fresco mural, yet can potentially harm those done in a secco. The critics who insisted Michelangelo painted primarily in a secco believed the conservators to be “blithely cleaning away all such areas.” From Colalucci’s restoration it is evident that the artist painted principally in buon fresco, a debate that was long contested pre-restoration.
Lighting, too, has been a highly criticized issue in regards to viewing the ceiling in the manner in which Michelangelo intended. The only accurate way to view the mural, pre or post restoration, is through natural light. One critic, opposed to the cleaning, describes his first trip to the Sistine chapel in 1967. He illustrates his journey up a wobbly aluminum scaffold where he stopped with the frescos still 20 feet above his head. “As we paused we noticed that the colors of the ceiling, still high above us, had changed dramatically. The grayish-brown sheen that everyone notices from the floor was absent at that height. The ceiling looked clean as dawn.” The perception of coloring does alter with distance. Michelangelo was aware of this, and consequently altered the colors of his ceiling mural in order to create depth that would be believable from a distance of 60 feet, only in natural light. The affect of artificial light on the ceiling frescoes distorts the color of the cleaned sections. The harsh artificial light that was present in the chapel for some time after the restoration, coupled with the factor of distance misrepresent the true beauty of the Sistine ceiling and have been the cause for unwarranted criticism. In addition to Michelangelo’s brilliant use of color, the artist’s true technique has been revealed as a result of the restoration. Colalucci discovered that the artist painted many of the frescoes freehand, disproving earlier beliefs that he used full-sized cartoons to transfer the outlines of each composition to the lunettes. Michelangelo’s technique was extremely dexterous and speedy. In fresco painting, watercolors are applied to damp plaster and dry almost instantaneously. Therefore, Michelangelo was forced to work extremely quickly as he only had a fleeting period of time to produce his work. It has also been said that Pope Julius II, the commissioner of the Sistine chapel, often threatened to have Michelangelo tossed from the scaffolding if he did not finish speedily. From the restoration, it has been discovered that each lunette took 3 days for execution, which exhibits Michelangelo’s hurried work and illustrates his tremendous skill and ability to produce masterful works in a fast manner. Michelangelo’s technique changed throughout the course of his painting the Sistine ceiling. He began painting in a very precise and meticulous method, and as he became more comfortable and familiar with the fresco style, his technique loosened. From the restoration, there have been very few discoveries of large corrections made to the ceiling. One, however, was discovered in the lunette of Aliud and Achim. The fact that the male figure took two days to paint, coupled with the abrupt stop just under the figure’s forehead gave conservators reason to believe Michelangelo might have knocked out the original work due to his dissatisfaction. After the restoration, Michelangelo’s technique has been interpreted vastly different than that before the cleaning. His technique has since been reevaluated and he is appreciated as a new artist. Michelangelo’s ability to paint rapidly and masterfully is almost inconceivable. His level of skill is unmatched by his contemporaries. As an artist of the 16th Century, Michelangelo was in the presence of other masters, yet none that paralleled his greatness.