The Sistine Chapel A New Vision

The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are often viewed as a striking study in the contrast between the middle and High Renaissance styles. On the one hand, the scenes painted on the chapel walls by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Rosselli and Signorelli which depict parallel events in the lives of Moses and Jesus, exemplify the narrative art developed in Florence in which multiple incidents and numerous draped figures are depicted in a single view. On the other hand, Michelangelo's scenes from Genesis on the chapel's ceiling epitomize art of the High Renaissance with it's emphasis on compositional clarity and the human form. His immense Last Judgement on the chapel's altar wall even anticipates Mannerism, which pushed the expressive power of the nude to it's limit.

Heinrich W. Pfeiffer is professor of art history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.