Sistine Chapel

Visited the exposition of Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel Art at Montreal's Palais des Congrès. The exposition is interesting in that it affords one a large-scale view of the ceiling works from up-close.

Some of the works are in alcoves, and rounded spaces, in the original but here presented flat.

The Sibyl figures prominently. M. wanted to show the prophets (male and Hebrew) and
sibyls (female and Greek) meant to have prophetized the coming of Christ and these
form the 'lace' around the main works of the ceiling.

Some of the works - above the Delphic Sibyl - are breathtakingly beautiful when seen in this exposition. Some commentary has maintained that M may have been homosexual and not really taken by women. It is true that some of the studies for his works were done from male models; I would not go further than that.

One needs to go back to the times, that rudimentary materials used, the fact that we are 

here in the Renaissance with perspective but not yet realism. M was one of the first to 

open bodies to see how muscle and the internal organs were placed. He also tended to 

exaggerate because the work would be seen from a distance.

The Chapel itself, in the Vatican City, is of course open to the public.

An earlier work from the chapel, Cosimo Rosselli, Handing over the tablets of the Law.