Lucky for me (and my education and bank account), there is no entrance charge to the Museums on the last Sunday of every month. Since I was off traveling elsewhere in Italy on the last Sunday of January, I figured I’d take advantage of it this time around.
Well, turns out the Vatican Museums are massive. No, really, they are colossal. I spent about an hour in the Sistine Chapel alone. There is no way I could do justice writing about the complete experience. But, I will do my best to write about The Last Judgment, Michelangelo’s fresco on the Chapel wall behind the alter.
The Last Judgement by Michelangelo is painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Even if the story this fresco tells is extreme, it is so important to keep this perspective in mind. Josemaria Escriva wrote, "[t]here is a hell. A trite enough statement, you think. I will repeat it, then: there is a hell! Echo it, at the right moment, in the ears of one friend, and another, and another."
I’m sure you are all learned people and know about this grand piece of artwork. But, in case you have forgotten, Michelangelo painted it between 1536 and 1541. If your math skills are deteriorating with your ability to recall art history: that would be six years that it took him to paint the wall. Click here for some more background information and to see what the Vatican Museum’s website has to say about the piece.
When first looking at the fresco, one of the most notable characteristics is the vibrant colors throughout the whole painting. Also, I just could not look away due to its sheer size! According to trusty Wikipedia, the work is 13.7 by 12 meters. However, attention to detail is not lost in the grandiose piece. Michelangelo had obviously painted every person with painstaking attention to each element of the body, all the way down to the last muscle. And, it isn’t just a sea of people heading to Heaven or Hell; there are elements that reveal stories of the figures. Possibly the most famous is St Bartholomew holding human skin, as he is known to have been flayed, then crucified. Also, as I learned from my audio guide at the museum, many critics say the skin is Michelangelo’s self-portrait.
Still, the part of the painting that kept drawing my eyes was the man pulling up two souls with Rosary beads. The Last Judgment is probably the most terrifying piece of art I’ve seen. It’s the end of the world, literally. God is righteously judging mankind. In life, judging a person is always held off. After all, ‘only God can judge.’ Well, Christ has come again, and there is indeed judgment to go around. As NSFTM says, “hell is real.” Yet, amidst this seriously frightening reality, there is so much beauty in The Last Judgment, because salvation for many is imminently approaching. It is a challenge to the viewer to change how one is living now, since he or she, unlike those represented in the fresco, still has time. Pope Benedict XVI said “the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice.”
The importance of prayer is manifested clearly through the wall of the Chapel while gazing at the Rosary portion of the image. “Certain souls’ salvation depends on my free decision to say yes to God’s plan,” says the National Catholic Register’s “Guide to the Rosary” as one point for meditation. It is not good enough to hold our hope for Heaven inside of us—we must answer our call to apostolate and bring others to Christ just like the man with the Rosary does in The Last Judgment.
A man pulls two people up into salvation using Rosary beads. This, my favorite part of The Last Judgement, reminds mankind of the effectiveness of prayer.
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