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The Sistine chapel ceiling was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. A few decades later his pupil Giorgio Vasari writes that "when the work was thrown open the whole world came running to see what Michelangelo had done; and certainly it was such as to make everyone speechless with astonishment."(1) The Italian original is even stronger, stating that "questo bastò per fare rimanere le persone trasecolate e mutole".(2) Trasecolare is more or less the opposite of seculare, to make non-secular and too take beyond the limits of history and of time. Vasari makes Michelangelo a semi-god, a first mover, someone who makes the world start running and to stop again in wonder. But his words are also a more or less accurate rendering of the impact the painting has made ever since: a tribute to its communicative strength. This study is concerned with only a very limited aspect of the Sistine chapel ceiling, the so-called Michelangelo crescendo.(3) It is well known that Michelangelo's composition for the ceiling is not absolutely uniform. The historical scenes close to the entrance side are filled with figures, while the scenes close to the altar only few. The Prophets and the Sibyls by the entrance are smaller than the ones by the altar. The so-called ignudi undergo the same development. Even the architecture is expanding, and while the first Prophets and Sibyls are seated steadily on their thrones, the latter ones almost seem to be gliding down the wall toward the floor (Fig 1). There are two competing explanations for this phenomena, one formalistic and one iconological. However, a third, quite uncomplicated explanation has hardly been given due consideration: The crescendo makes it possible for the spectator entering the chapel through the old entrance (not the present one, where most people enter today) to see the whole work in just one gaze. The figures close by are smaller and the scenes more crowded, the ones further away are larger and more sculptural-and can therefore be seen all the way from the entrance. Taking this view is to understand the crescendo as a means toward making the work available for its audience; a compositional device used not for formal or iconological reasons but as a will to communicate. It is the possibility and process of communication itself we are concerned with then-the mediation of meaning-rather than its content. I will here measure the value of this explanation against traditional ones, and pose the question why it has not attracted the attention of art historians before. Formalism In a brief article from 1890 Heinrich Wölfflin makes what may be considered the single most important contribution of all writings on the painted ceiling. Wölfflin sets out to investigate the making of the ceiling, not as a literal but as a visible entity. One must do that, he says, "das Ungeheure sich fassbar zu machen".(4) Until then art historians had taken for granted that the scenes were painted in a chronological, literal order. The work should, then, have begun by the altar with The Separation of Darkness and Light and finished with The Drunkenness of Noah by the entrance door (Fig 2 & 3). But Wölfflin observed that the figures by the entrance wall are much smaller and more linear in style, while the ones by the altar are larger and more painterly. He also saw that the scenes at the entrance side are crowded with figures, while at the other side of the room there are fewer figures and the scenes are more unified. There is a steady growth and the figures become more monumental all the way from the entrance to the altar: "Der Stil wird allmählich grösser und malerischer, die Figuren wachsen und es kommt wohl auch vor ... als ein Ganzes gedacht und zusammen componiert werden."(5) After reading the article it is difficult not to agree with Wölfflin that the ceiling was painted from the entrance side toward the altar, not the other way around. To round of, Wölfflin cites a passage from Michelangelo's friend Condivi's writings, giving full support to his conclusion. But the methodological implication is more important. What Wölfflin wants to say is that one should not be content with just reading images, one must really look at them; one can learn something from merely looking, and that learning is the foundation of the new discipline Art History-or rather Kunstwissenschaft. No wonder this attractive theory has had many followers and is still today the most common among scholars. Some variations may also be mentioned. A common opinion today is that Michelangelo changed his style after seeing the half-finished ceiling from the floor.(6) He then would have observed that the figures were at bit small, that it would do no harm to make them somewhat larger, and in the historical scenes make them fewer. But this theory must be refuted. As already Wölfflin observed the crescendo is steady from the entrance to the altar. There is no sudden shift (Fig 1). Already the second figure is larger than the first, and so on. With the historical scenes the changes are more abrupt, but taken as a whole it is obvious that they are continuos; that they start at the very beginning of the work, with the Prophet Zechariah (Fig 4), and does not halt, alter or yield at any given point of the working process, until the magnificent figure of Jonah (Fig 5). There is also an interesting psychological interpretation of the crescendo, launched by Jerome D Oremland in 1989.(7) According to this theory the alterations are due to Michelangelo's struggle with his 'significant other': Julius II, Raphael, Bramante, his own family or-perhaps-even God. Trying to convince himself and his opponents of the excellence of the work that he was producing, his figures became larger and more manifest. This theory can not be so easily disputed as the former one, but neither can it be easily proved. All we know is that Michelangelo most certainly wanted to do a good job, and maybe even to impress some people. But if that should be ascribed to a sub-conscious anxiety of his, or to some other, more apparent of his personal and artistic qualities, is quite another matter. We can conclude, only, that there are several ways of comprehending or interpreting the observation made by Wölfflin. This observation will always be significant, while the conclusions may vary. Objections to Formalism First of all it must be settled that Wölfflin, no matter what he says himself, was not the least interested in how the Sistine chapel ceiling was painted-that is, in the actual working procedure. What he wanted to do was to demonstrate the supreme value of his method: that of looking at works of art, as opposed to reading them like texts. When scrutinised, it becomes clear that Wölfflin's concept of how the ceiling was painted is most certainly wrong. It is hardly likely that such a large undertaking was commenced without a specific plan, and simply left to the inspiration of the artist. We know that Michelangelo knew about the plan of decorating the ceiling at least two years before the contract was signed. Decorating the Sistine chapel ceiling was first heard of in 1506, in a letter dated 10 of May from Piero Roselli to Michelangelo. Piero tells the artist that Bramante and the Pope have discussed the work. Bramante is reported to have been sceptical towards offering Michelangelo the commission, since he was foremost a sculptor, and the painting of such a large and complex surface required a thoroughly experienced and competent fresco painter.(8) A contract with Michelangelo was signed the 11 of May in 1508 and the work was inaugurated on the 31 of October in 1512. Through letters and a few other documents we can follow the proceedings of the work and we have reason to believe, for instance, that there was an interruption for about a year between September 1509 and 1510, when Michelangelo was occupied with other matters.(9) It is understandable that a work of such proportions will undergo some significant changes over time. But it is also evident that it cannot be begun without a detailed plan for how it is supposed to come out when completed, and for how it should be executed. The main problem that had to be solved, was how to unify such a large painted area (the ceiling is 40x14 meters). Another problem was the foreshortening, since the ceiling is not entirely flat but contains several convex spandrels and pendentives. The development from the early sketches to the final composition is, however, in itself not important in this context. Only that the work had to be done.(10) Of course Michelangelo had to rely on assistants. The anecdotes told by Vasari and Condivi about the artist making everything except grounding the colours himself are most certainly not true. William E Wallace has found and named 13 assistants. Most of them came from Ghirlandajo's workshop, where Michelangelo himself had received his training. Some of the others belonged to Michelangelo's friend Giuliano da Sangallo's workshop and family. According to a letter to Michelangelo from Michi the 28 September 1510 two assistants were working in the chapel while Michelangelo himself was away. Presumably they were enlarging drawings, transferring cartoons, making preliminary indications in the plaster, etc.(11) The practice of painting frescoes was going through some important changes in the beginning of the 16th century, but the revolutionary redirection it took at the end of the 13th century was still followed. Most innovative was not the technique of fresco painting itself, but rather the method of giornate. It meant that the composition was outlined below the top layer of the plaster al secco. The advantage was that the composition now could be painted, and even re-painted, on the wall before actual fresco painting started. The strong underpainting, the sinopia, would shine through the final, thin fresco layer, the intonacco. On the intonacco the fresco was painted one giornata at a time.(12) In the 16th century cartoons became more important and careful underpainting less common. We know that Raphael, working at the same time and place as Michelangelo, used cartoons for The School of Athens. They are still preserved and are quite detailed, but contain only the figures, very little of the important architecture of the scene. The cartoons were transferred to the wall by incising the lines with a stylos or by perforating them and then powdering the cartoon with charcoal.(13) As for the Sistine chapel ceiling we have almost no working material left, only the work itself. There are a few drawings, one early sketch for the composition, and some studies-of which one could be a sketch for the cartoon-head of Haman.(14) It has been assumed that the drawings and cartoons were destroyed by Michelangelo himself, not to make anyone know how much work it had cost him to complete the ceiling.(15) Probably very little painting was done in the chapel before the over-all composition and the cartoons were ready. In a letter to his banker Giovanni Francesco Fatucci, in December 1523, Michelangelo complains about having to leave Florence in 1508 for Rome. Working on the Battle of Cascina for the Town Hall of the City, he says, I "had already done the cartoon, as is known to all Florence, so that the money seemed to me half earned".(16) If the preparation of this cartoon was considered half the job done, the preparations for painting the vast and complex ceiling of the Sistine chapel must have been even more demanding and thorough. Because of the difficult foreshortening it seems plausible that quite a lot of underpainting was done, at least for the architecture. Even today it can be seen that cartoons have been used for many of the heads, which have traces from styluses and charcoal.(17) This brief outline of how the ceiling really was painted shows us one thing: an important and immense work was not begun without careful preparations. The whole concept, as well as many of the details, must have been absolutely clear to the artist and explained through an abundance of drawings, cartoons and other instructions for the assistants. It is not probable that it was guided, in its main outlines, by sudden inspiration or by unforeseen and uncontrollable artistic developments. If that would have been the case Michelangelo would not have been the professional artist-to make a true understatement-he really was. Iconology and the Crescendo There are several iconological interpretations of the Sistine chapel ceiling. The best known is Charles de Tolnay's Neoplatonic explication, in his grand work on the artist.(18) There is also an Augustinian interpretation by Esther Gordon Dotson, which has received some well-deserved attention.(19) Efforts have also been made toward finding the author of the program. Names have been picked among the theologians at the Papal court of Julius II, but no documents have been found and no single interpretation has received general recognition.(20) Therefore, the formalist explanation has kept a firm grip on most scholars. It is not necessary to go into these iconological interpretations in much detail to dispute their relevance for the question raised here. As for the iconography of the ceiling it can be easily detected through the scenes and figures themselves and pose only minor problems. In the literal material involved nothing is said, of course, of any crescendo. If we are asking about a written program we may well admit that it must have existed and that it had an author. But it seems very unlikely that it went beyond mere literal instructions, beyond a settlement of motifs, the identities of the Prophets and the Sibyls, etc. Some art historians, like Malcolm Bull, have also explicitly stated that they won't let formal matters or stylistic developments get involved in their iconographical interpretations.(21) Dotson, who wants to maintain a connection between the program and the crescendo, has to admit that the meaning of such an iconography must have been highly elusive, and that even "those writers for whom the frescoes were most important, notably artists like Vasari and Condivi, were not in a position to understand the complex theological issues involved".(22) The more general, iconological level is also open for debate. Does this iconography correspond with Neoplatonic or Augustinian ideas? According to Tolnay "the spectator advancing from the main entrance toward the altar experiences from history to history a gradual ascension: freed from his bodily prison he leaves his earthly existence and attains a state of absolute freedom in infinity. The divine origin of the human soul becomes manifest."(23) Dotson objects:
An Augustinian interpretation might fit the Christian iconography better than a Neoplatonic one, but it is still not made clear how and why the enlargement of the figures should be associated at all with spiritual ascension or transcendence. While a literal or theological reading of the historical scenes of the ceiling, from the Creation to the history of Noah (and back again), can be said to represent the divine origin of man, it is still not shown that the crescendo effect has anything to do with this narrative. In his book Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence S J Freedberg made an effort to define the art of Michelangelo in relation to Neoplatonism. According to him this term should be reserved for the ideal art of quattrocento artists like Botticielli. Already the art of Leonardo da Vinci depart from that tradition; his figures are "inhabited substantialities" of "remarkable immediacy and vitality".(25) Neither can the art of Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel be reduced to concepts like Neoplatonic or Christian. An iconological understanding must acknowledge booth, but also recognise that the occupation with the human form is derived from neither tradition and owns a lot also to Michelangelo's interest in Classical sculpture and to the very particular culture of humanist Italy at the beginning of the Sixteenth century.(26) There are also some iconographical aspects of the crescendo that does not have to do with the actual size of the figures. Not only do they, according to some writers, become larger and in the historical scenes fewer, but they may also be described as more powerful, more affected. This opinion is open to debate: certainly the effect is not consequently carried out (Fig 1). But even if accepted, this is not necessarily due to any philosophical or theological premises. If we reach the conclusion that aspects of communication were of profound importance for the composition, it will follow that the other aspects were secondary justifications to this necessity. Since the figures were to become larger toward the altar, they were also made stronger and more vigorous. This would mean that the intended viewers-or, rather, the problem of addressing the work to them- not only had an impact on the over-all composition but also came to direct the dramatisation of individual figures. This possibility lies outside the realm of the iconological system, however. Being restricted, through its very premises, to the literal meaning of art, it has little to offer toward explaining a media-specific phenomenon like the crescendo. Instead it has had a tendency to reduce exctra-iconological aspects to literal and ideological meaning, leaving no room for considerations of other artistic problems. This was recognised already by George Kubler, who objected that "messages that can be conveyed in Meissen porcelain differ from those of large bronze sculpture" and that a change in media means that a message may undergo transformations "which are mistaken for changes in content".(27) And this may very well be the case here. Communication An advantage of understanding the crescendo as a way of mediating the work is that it does not demand any specialist, philosophical or theological, learning from the public or the artists-which is not to say that such a learning did not exist. We don't need to find out about any program to know that works of art are usually made to be seen and to make an impact on its spectators-and this is especially true for the forensic humanist culture of the Renaissance. If it can be shown that the crescendo had such a communicative function, this explanation should have priority to explanations that could have been understood only in the abstract and by the very few. One important problem posed to Michelangelo from the beginning of his work was the division of the chapel by the chancel screen (Fig 6 & 7). Most people visiting the chapel would never pass beyond it, and thus never come close enough to see the paintings by the altar wall-unless some unconventional modifications were done. This is also apparent from Condivi's detailed description of the ceiling. He describes the first scenes, by the altar, correctly but when he comes to The Flood, by the chancel screen, he starts describing them up side down, so that left becomes right and the right hand side becomes left. Probably he took a few steps into the chapel when entering. He made his descriptions of the first histories he saw and then simply turned around to describe the rest of them.(28) A part of the work that is usually passed over in silence are the lunettes with the Families. For Wölfflin it is necessary to suppose that they were made last, after all the other paintings. Still he must have been troubled by the fact that they don't show any stylistic development whatsoever, but are uniform in size and in style (Fig 8 & 9). An iconological interpretation must also explain why these scenes were not included in the program, if that program proscribed a crescendo. From a spectator point of view the answer is clearly that the figures on the wall cannot be seen from the entrance anyway. It does not matter how large the figures are, since the optic distortion is too strong, due to the sharp angle between the viewer and the wall. While the ceiling is meant to be seen from east to west, the lunettes must be seen in the other direction, from the south or the north side of the room. This division of the painted area is given by a necessary adaptation to the spectator, not by interior factors like an artistic development or any given iconographical program. The composition of the Crescendo may also be described as an inverted perspective. While a normal, and especially a central perspective proscribes a focal point outside the work, from which it is looked at as through a window, an inverted perspective means that the point of origin is founded inside the work. This is the case here, if we accept that the work was to be seen from the entrance of the chapel. Often the inverted perspective is regarded as a primitive, or at least a pre-Renaissance, phenomena. However, we know that in Byzantine culture it was used from late Antiquity onwards and by the most advanced artists, for example Andrej Rublev in 15-th century Russia. His The Old Testament Trinity is an example of how inversions, and other extra-ordinary means of representation, add up to intriguing visual effects (Fig 10). Most apparent is the inverted perspective of the table and benches, diverging instead of converging with increased distance from the viewer. It is as if it was seen from inside instead of outside the painting. In other cases the size of the figures are inverted, so that the larger figures are further away from the viewer, while the closer ones are smaller (Fig 11). Boris Uspenskij has understood the inverted perspective as a way for the artist to make the image communicate with its spectator. The Byzantine icon offers not only representations of saints and holy figures, but puts the pious spectator in an active dialogue with them.(29) We do not have to conclude that Michelangelo was alluding to late Antique or Byzantine art when he painted the Sistine chapel ceiling. The point is just that when similar means of composition are used, it may well be for similar reasons: to make communication with the viewer stronger and more dynamic. Art History and the Viewing of the Ceiling For different reasons scholars of Art History have not been inclined toward this interpretation. One can even sense an unwillingness to accept such an uncomplicated solution to the problem, and in fact many authors simply refute the possibility of seeing the ceiling from one single point of view in the chapel. Charles Seymour Jr, who published a very useful anthology on the ceiling starts of his introduction by saying: "Let us begin by admitting quite frankly that a total view of the ceiling from one place and at one moment in time is a physical impossibility."(30) In a recent book on mural programs in Italy this same standing is carried into the extreme:
Of course nobody will, in practice, look at the ceiling that way. Still, it is the way art historians have in theory looked at it all too often. Even in John Shearman's inspiring book on spectatorship in the Italian Renaissance, it is merely noted that the large figures may have been done with the spectator down on the floor in mind.(32) As far as known to me there is only one author who has recognised the existence of the communicative arrangement, and that is Charles de Tolnay:
Tolnay certainly is one of the most prominent scholars we have ever had on Michelangelo. However, he was not inclined to let this observation have any bearing on actual interpretation. The explanation is probably very simple. When Tolnay was writing the dominant schools of Art History were formalism and iconology. They booth have their own methods and specific terminology, and therefore they were considered scientifically relevant. Problems of communication, on the other hand, were hardly of any importance at all. This observation was therefore bound to remain simply an observation, and was never allowed to enter serious scholarly discourse. There is, rather surprisingly, an affinity between Tolnay's Neoplatonic interpretation and Vasari's account of the impact the ceiling had on its audience-the trasecolare. In the introduction of his book Tolnay also makes a more personal statement: "Why should it not be said that this gigantic work had on him [Tolnay], then young student, an effect of the revelation of an absolute truth."(34) This strong impact made him, and others, look for explanations were they expected to find them, in iconology and Neoplatonism. Today the situation is different. Communication- and reception-studies abound, and we are more willing to see works of art as means for communication instead of as self-sufficient artistic or philosophical investigations. This is a view which we, in many ways, share with the Renaissance itself. In such a perspective the spectator is not someone who enters the discourse after a work of art is completed, but already a part of the creative act. Just like the artist, the spectator is an important aspect of what we call 'the work of art itself'. Even in cases when problems of spectatorship are not as prominent as here, it has to be acknowledged in all artistic ventures-and therefore also in our hermeneutic effort. - It should be stressed, finally, that the ideal position of the spectator is not the only possible, or even desirable, one. The ceiling can, and has, of course, always been seen from a number of views. What we have tried to define is the place of its implicit spectator, the spectator implied by the work and to which we will have to relate to appreciate more fully its aesthetic significance.(35) To summarise: Standing at the entrance of the Sistine chapel, facing the altar and lifting one's gaze toward the ceiling, is the only way to see the historical scenes, right side up, the Prophets, the Sibyls and the ignudi all at the same time. One cannot help but fixing one's eyes at the scene of The Creation of Adam, or, more precisely, on the spot where the hands of God and Adam meet, where the creator and the created are connected (Fig 12). To say that Michelangelo was not only guided by interior artistic considerations but also by his public when he painted the ceiling is not to diminish his creative powers. It is to say that an important aspect of the attraction this work exercises, on so many of us, is the urgency with which it mediates its extraordinary artistic qualities. NOTES 1 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans G Bull, Penguin Classics 1983 (1568), p 360. 2 Giorgio Vasari, Le opere di Girogio Vasari VII, ed G Milanesi , Florence 1881 (1568), p 186. 3 Named by Charles De Tolnay, Michelangelo II, The Sistine Ceiling, Princeton 1945, passim. See also his much read Michelangelo. Sculptor, Painter, Architect, Princeton 1975, pp 24 & 33-34. 4 Heinrich Wölfflin, "Die Sixtinische Decke Michelangelos", Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft XIII, 1890, p 264. 5 Wölfflin 1890, p 267. 6 Johannes Wilde, Michelangelo, Oxford 1978, p 68. Anthony Hughes, "Michelangelo, §1, 2 (ii): Painting: Sistine Ceiling, 1508-1512", The Dictionary of Art 21, ed. Jane Turner, Macmillan Publishers Limited 1996, pp 443-445. 7 Jerome D Oremland, Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling. A Psychoanalytic Study of Creativity, Madison1989. 8 Charles Seymour Jr [Ed], Michelangelo: The Sistine chapel Ceiling, Norton Critical Studies in Art History1995, p 102. 9 Seymour, p 103 & p 109. 10 Sven Sandström, Levels of Unreality. Studies in Structure and Construction in Italian Mural Painting during the Renaissance, Stockholm 1963, pp 173-186. 11 William E Wallace, "Michelangelo's Assistants in the Sistine chapel", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, December 1987, pp 203-216. 12 A fine account of this is given in Marcia B Hall, Colour and Meaning. Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge University Press 1992. 13 For a thorough history of cartoons see Carmen C Bambach, Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop. Theory and Practice, 1300-1600, Cambridge University Press 1999. On Raphael's cartoon for School of Athens, pp 268-271. However we do not agree on the conclusions on the cartoons for the Sistine Ceiling, pp 279-281. 14 See the note above and Carmen C Bambach, "A Note on Michelangelo's Cartoon for the Sistine Ceiling", The Art Bulletin 65 (1983), pp 661-665. 15 On the destruction of Michelangelo's drawings see Michael Hirst, Michelangelo and His Drawings, Yale University press 1989, pp 16-21. 16 Seymour 1995, p 111. 17 Gianluigi Colalucci, "The Technique of the Sistine Ceiling Frescoes", The Sistine chapel. A Glorious Restoration, ed Pierluigi de Vecchi, New York 1994, pp 46-57. 18 Tolnay 1945. 19 Esther Gordon Dotson, "An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling" The Art Bulletin 61 (1979), pp 223-256 & pp 405-429. 20 A useful collection of articles, with several iconological interpretations, is William E Wallace [Ed], Michelangelo. Selected Scholarship in English 2, The Sistine chapel, New York & London 1995. 21 Malcolm Bull, "The Iconography of the Sistine chapel Ceiling", Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), p 598. 22 Dotson 1979, p 429. 23 Tolnay 1945, II, p 40. 24 Dotson 1979, p 429. 25 S J Freedberg, Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence, New York 1985 (1961), pp 11-13. 26 Freedberg, p 92-112. 27 George Kubler, The Shape of Time. Remarks on the History of Things, Yale University Press 1962, p 28. 28 Seymour 1995, p 116. 29 Boris Uspenskij, A Poetics of Composition. The Structure of the Artistic Text and Typology of a Compositional Form, University of California Press 1973, pp134-137. Boris Uspenskij, The Semiotics of the Russian Icon, PdR Press Publications in Semiotics of Art 3, Ghent 1976, p 53. 30 Seymour 1995 (1972), p xiii. 31 Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, The Place of the narrative. Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431-1600, Chicago & London1990, p 233. 32 John Shearman, Only Connect. Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance, Princeton University press 1992, p 216. 33 Tolnay 1945, p 43. Tolnay somewhat echoes the classical study by Ernst Steinmann on the Sistine chapel, Die Sixtinische Kapelle. II. Michelangelo. Munich 1905, pp 220-221. Steinmann made similar observations concerning the narratives, and he objects to the idea that the changes were due to any miscalculation by the artist. Still he was too much under the influence of Wölfflin to draw any further conclusions, concerning the Prophets and the Sibyls or the over-all idea of the composition. 34 Tolnay 1945, p xii. 35 On this concept see Wolfgang Kemp, "The Work of Art and Its Beholder. The Methodology of the Aesthetics of Reception", The Subjects of Art History. Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspective, ed M A Cheetham, M A Holly & K Moxey, Cambridge University Press 1998, pp 180-196. Peter Gillgren, Gotland University, S-621 57 Visby, Sweden Source: "The Michelangelo Crescendo. Communicating the Sistine Chapel Ceiling", Konsthistorisk tidskrift LXX:4, pp 206-216. Note: Due to copy-right restrictions no illustrations are found in the above text, but in the printed version only.
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