Michelangelo's Last Judgment

Marcia Hall’s chapter on Michelangelo tells a brief history of the Last Judgment and starts to analyze the differences in Michelangelo’s fresco verses the other depictions of the Last Judgment. During the Renaissance, the Last Judgment had not been a popular subject due to religious upheaval sweeping across Europe. Some historians believe that with Michelangelo’s return to Rome, he brought a reassurance that Rome was returning as a cultural center. Hall wrote, “Where Michelangelo departs from the tradition is in his extraordinary figures. They are nude, and they do not reflect the full range of physical types and ages; on the contrary, they are all akin in their ideal strength and energy, representing Paul’s concept of the spiritual, or glorified, body.” This is where I disagree. Michelangelo wasn’t leaving tradition behind, or at least he wasn’t leaving his tradition behind. I would agree, he is leaving tradition behind in the sense he is not following other artists’ examples, but then he has never followed anyone else. If we look up at the Sistine Ceiling, we can see that he is simply recreating the success of those frescoes. He idealizes the figures, in the sense that they are young and dramatic and depict Michelangelo’s idea of an idealized male human form. Again, he is using foreshortening and contrapposto poses that hardly anyone had ever seen before. 

Another aspect of Hall’s chapter that I find interesting is she mentions that Michelangelo depicts his angels without wings, almost as if this was a new idea. However, we have seen Michelangelo do this before. In his Donni Tondo, historians believe the idealized, nude figures in the background are actually angels. In the Last Judgment, Michelangelo is reusing his pervious forms and painting tactics, but what is interesting is that the public views it as new and shocking, even though they have an example of Michelangelo’s work above their heads. Michelangelo was simply reasserting himself into the fabric of the art world within Rome.