Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel

Very easy and interesting read. I visited the Sistine Chapel a few years back but was unable to learn much as to the meaning of each of the paintings on the ceiling. The tour guide was knowledgeable enough for a quick tour but I wanted to know more. This book delivers. The author shares what Michelangelo told friends and biographers as to the meanings of the various paintings.The author also shares with his readers how the ceiling was viewed at the time of its unveiling by the artists contemporaries. This is not a dry, boring read, and I would recommend it to anyone traveling to Rome who plans on visiting the Sistine Chapel, or who just wants to know more about the artist and his greatest work outside of his sculpting.

There have been many, many books written about this subject - as well there should be! Some have been very good, many quite boringly bad, others just off-the-wall in their alleged revelations of obscure, arcane Da Vinci-type "codes" hidden in the paintings. So I bought the hardcover edition of this book with some trepidation, wondering what else was there to be said about the most famous ceiling in world. Having just finished reading this book, I can simply say that it truly isn't WHAT you do, it is HOW you do it. And Andrew Graham-Dixon has DONE it, admirably, wonderfully. His book is clear, concise, perfectly ilustrated - and it is also, by my lights, the best and most poetic description of Michelangelo's glorious ceiling ever written. I'll go even further: what the Maestro put on the ceiling in paints, this author puts into this book in words! One example may suffice: in discussing the fresco entitled The Deluge (depicting Noah and the survivors of the Great Flood) Mr. Graham-Dixon poetically points out the unique composition wherein half the fresco is crowded with human misery and the other half is virtually blank with calm but deadly and steadily rising waters. He concludes his insightful description and commentary on this compositional disparity with a summation of Michelangelo's apparent artistic intent - and that is to show that "The world is a picture that God can unpaint at any moment." What a line! An aphorism in and of itself. These types of rich and extremely well-worded interpretations fill the deceptively slim volume. Reading this book, one feels as if they were seeing the ceiling paintings for the first time. The book also details Michelangelo's entire life in, again, the same pointed, poetic manner. Mr. Graham-Dixon even does a Joe Friday in sticking to "just the facts" when discussing Michelangelo's much debated sexuality. In two short pages, the author succinctly argues the case against the popular belief that the artist was homosexual. It would not have mattered if he were - but it is this type of clear-headed research and writing that makes this book so profound and so thrilling to read. I was sorry when the book ended. It's that good!

I would like to know more about sistine ceiling, that's why I bought this product. It is specific and there are enough details. There are also enough about Michelangelo's life. I was fond of the colour pictures and all the historical and religious background for each of them. It is not boring,easily readable and sometimes exciting. I was surprised to learn that toiling in his masterwork he had such a damage to his neck and eyes. It finally made me to visit sistine ceiling once more time. There are a lot I hadn't noticed when I first visited it. Incidentally, I would like to recommend for furher reading, "Michelangelo, a biography" by George Bull.