The Last Judgment (1536–1541)

CREATED BY Michelangelo

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN Vatican City

This terrifying and awe-inspiring painting is located on the altar wall in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, Italy. The Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1475, and was created to be the pope's chapel and the site of papal elections (and it still serves those functions today). The work depicts the Last Judgment—the time when, according to the New Testament, the world will come to an end and all humans will be judged by God. In the painting, masses of naked humans rise from the Earth to be judged by Jesus, who is sitting above them on a throne surrounded by saints. Muscular, wingless angels hover above as well, sounding the trumpets of Revelation, calling souls to rise to judgment. Demons claw at the damned and drag them down, while more angels guide the saved upward.

More Art Created by Michelangelo

David (sculpture, 1504)

Sistine Chapel ceiling (painting, 1508–1512)

St. Peter's Basilica (architect; completed 1626)

Paintings depicting Judgment Day—also known as Dooms —were very popular as church decoration during Michelangelo's time. They were usually given prominent placement to better help parishioners ponder their mortality and their levels of sinfulness. The Last Judgment is probably the most famous Doom today, and it shares many features with other Dooms, including the inclusion of St. John the Evangelist; a focus on Jesus, with Mary at his side; and souls rising to meet their judgment (and falling into hell when they're found lacking). This work also depicts St. Bartholomew, a martyr who was skinned alive. He's shown holding his empty skin, but Michelangelo painted his own face onto it! Despite its similarities to a lot of other Dooms, Michelangelo's painting had an important difference in that it depicted the people without clothes, thus stripping them of identifying details like social class or occupation.

EALITY FACTOR

The painting is most closely linked with the predictions about Judgment Day that were included in the Book of Revelation, but it also borrows from Dante's visions of Hell in The Inferno, from around 1314. Judgment Day—which changes from one version of Christianity to another—is generally supposed to occur at some point in the future, and be part of a series of events including the resurrection of the dead, the second coming of Christ, and various plagues and wars. Can it really happen? That all depends on whether or not you believe in this section of the Bible.

The Inspiration

Twenty-six years earlier Michelangelo had painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which became a huge, beautiful painting featuring many intricate scenes from the Bible. In 1534, Pope Clement VII commissioned him to return to paint a resurrection scene behind the altar, but then the Pope died shortly afterward. Clement's successor, Pope Paul III, felt a Judgment Day scene would be more fitting for the mood of Rome at the time, and asked Michelangelo to change course. Pope Paul III may have had a point. Rome had recently faced several huge obstacles and setbacks: The sack of Rome in 1527 (a military action against the Catholic Church by the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V) had destroyed thousands of churches, palaces, and houses, and the Catholic church was also busy fighting the Protestant Reformation, a sixteenth-century European movement that strove to reshape the beliefs and actions of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Impact

• The work was considered scandalous at the time. Church leaders were distraught by all the naughty bits, and deemed the work more fit for a tavern than a church in the Vatican. Eventually they hired one of Michelangelo's own students to add drapery, loincloths, and other obscuring devices to the people in the painting. Some of the coverings were removed later during a restoration of the artwork.

• The work is one of the most treasured artworks in the world. Four million people visit the Sistine Chapel each year, many of them solely to behold Michelangelo's works.