'The Sistine Ceiling' by Michelangelo (Part 4): Ignudi, Prophets, and Sibyls

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is an amalgamation of wonderful and spectacular scenes. This is the fourth and last video in a series about the Sistine Ceiling. We will look at the twenty nude figures flanking the nine main scenes from the Book of Genesis, which were discussed in the second video. And we will also look at the impressive figures of the Seven Prophets and Five Sibyls that are painted in between the spandrels and pendentives discussed in the third video of this series. We will start with the Seven Prophets, which were a fairly conventional topic to include on the ceiling of a religious place like the Sistine Chapel. And then we'll turn our attention to the Sibyls, and it may be surprising at first why these mythological figures have a place on the ceiling. And as you can see by looking at the full ceiling, these prophets and sybils, depicted on the left, right, top, and bottom of the ceiling, are the biggest figures Michelangelo painted on the ceiling. Finally, we will look at the ignudi, which were a passion of Michelangelo and at times look more like sculptures than paintings. There are a total of seven prophets on the ceiling, and all of them play an important role in the Old Testament. All of them foretold the coming of Jesus as described in the Old Testament. Among the prophets is a portrait of Zechariah, who is portrayed prominently above the entrance of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted him six months into his four-year project and portrayed him at 13 feet in height, almost 4 meters. He is reading a book and is wrapped in crimson and green robes, a yellow ochre shirt, and a bright blue collar. Zechariah is known as the prophet who predicted the reconstruction of the ruined temple. The prominent place of Zechariah was carefully chosen. Pope Julius II, who commissioned the ceiling's work to Michelangelo, was at the same time building a new St. Peter's Basilica. And thus, there is a clear parallel between the prophet Zechariah and Pope Julius II, who saw himself as a prophet as well. And Michelangelo made sure that the vigor of Zechariah had a clear resemblance with the Pope. Michelangelo painted a total of 343 figures, and not all of them look so good as Zechariah. Look for example at the child holding up the large book for the prophet Daniel. One of the art critics back in the day described him as a dwarfish brutal gammon dressed in rags. In between some of the Sybils, to whom we get in a moment, are also the figures of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel. Some of them are depicted with a scroll or a book, referring to where they got their wisdom from and where it is described. But Jeremiah is just in deep thought, lamenting about the fall of Jerusalem, which happened during his lifetime. And whereas Jeremiah is portrayed in relatively bright colors, Isaiah is portrayed in cooler, but still luminous colors. It is one of the most praised prophets on the ceiling. Giorgio Vasari wrote about it. Anyone who studies this figure copied so faithfully from nature, the true mother of the art of painting, will find a beautifully composed work, capable of teaching in full measure all the precepts to be followed by a good painter. The figure of Ezekiel seems a bit uncertain and worried. He still looks like a powerful figure, but his facial expression shows doubt and worry about what is going to happen. In contrast, the figure of Joel expresses wisdom. Michelangelo apparently modeled Joel after his colleague, the architect Bramante, who is intently studying the scroll in his hands to gather the wisdom he needs to guide the Christian people. When the full ceiling was finally revealed to the pope and his guests in 1512, the figure that made the biggest impression on them was the prophet Jonah, and we can see a fish next to him, referring to the story that he spent three days in the belly of a whale. It was painted on a concave surface, and Jonah is leaning backward with his legs separated, body twisted, and his head looking up, as if he is admiring the full extent of the vault that Michelangelo had created. Michelangelo had also perfected the technique of foreshortening here, and it created the illusion that the legs of Jonah were dangling in the air, having a dazzling impact on the visitors back in the day, and of course, still today. It may be surprising to see five larger-than-life female figures in between the prophets. These so-called Sibyls were mythological figures, which you would certainly not expect in such a highly religious place as the Sistine Chapel. But Michelangelo was a very religious man, so he would not have included them just to upset the Vatican. And the word Sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word Sibylla, which means prophetess, and with that knowledge, it already makes some sense that they are depicted in between the seven prophets. These Sibyls were able to predict the future, often using obscure riddles, and their wisdom and predictions were available from some manuscripts which were quite popular during the beginning of the 16th century. The reason that these Sibyls were accepted on the ceiling of a holy place was that some early church fathers, like Saint Augustine, had given some respect to these Sibyls by declaring that some of their predictions had foretold some of the most important moments in the New Testament, like the birth and passion of Christ. They basically were a source for the non-believers to tell them about the existence of truth of Christianity. The first of the five Sibyls is the Delphic or Delphian Sibyl, referring to the oracle of Delphi, who was famous in Greek mythology. According to mythology, she was a descendant from the sea god Poseidon and the sister of Apollo. One of the putae attending her is reading some prophecies, and she is looking in the direction of the scene of Judith and Holofernes that we discussed last week. And as also mentioned last week, Michelangelo used pretty bright colors for her clothes to make sure that she would not look too pale in relation to the scenes on the wall of the Sistine Chapel below her. The second one Michelangelo painted is the Eritrean Sibyl. And no, this Sibyl is not from the African country of Eritrea, but rather from the province of Izmir in modern-day Turkey. And while I mentioned earlier that Sibyls are different from prophets, because according to some, they convey the Christian ideas to non-believers, there is another difference between Sibyls and prophets. Whereas prophets primarily share their predictions, regardless of the questions they are asked, Sibyls were particularly helpful when the people visiting them were asking great questions. Next we have the Cumaean Sibyl. Here we can see a study that Michelangelo drew for her head. And look at her muscular body. Not exactly the gracious female figure that many of his colleagues would choose to depict. Here is, for example, the same Sibyl as depicted by Dominichino about a century after Michelangelo painted her. As explained in an earlier video in this series, Michelangelo always used male models for his figures, even when he would depict a woman. And so all his women look a bit like bodybuilders, and particularly so this Sibyl. And the Cumaean Sibyl was the most important one for the people in Rome, as according to the writer Virgil, she lived close to Rome and was most accessible to them when they needed some predictions on the future. The fourth one is the Persian Sibyl. Like all the other Sibyls, she is reading a book, albeit a smaller one than the ones the other Sibyls are reading. She is looking for the knowledge that she can use to predict the future. And it is good to recognize that her colors are slightly brighter than the scene of God separating the water from the earth next to her. The colors would have been much brighter back in the day, but as with most paintings and frescoes, colors deteriorate and become less luminous over time. Something that can only partially be reversed by cleaning and restoring the work at a later point in time. The last one that Michelangelo painted is the Libyan Sibyl. She is perhaps the most graceful female form painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling, showing the artistic progress he made while working his way down the ceiling. From the detailed studies, we can see that Michelangelo took great care in designing this last Sibyl. The ignudi were probably one of the favorite elements that Michelangelo painted on the ceiling. Not only did these figures allow him to paint the male nude, like he enjoyed sculpting them to perfection, he could also paint these nude figures in all sorts of complicated and interesting poses. The ignudi serve a few purposes. As you can see by looking at the full ceiling, they separate the nine main scenes from the Book of Genesis from the scenes on the outer parts of the ceiling. More specifically, five of the nine main scenes are surrounded by four nude males each. For example, here you can see the sacrifice of Noah surrounded by four ignudi. The pose of one of them shows an interesting parallel with the famous statue of Laocoon and his sons, which was discovered near Rome a few years earlier. It shows how Michelangelo got the inspiration for the poses of the ignudi from some of the ancient classical statues and reliefs he came across in Rome. And each duo of ignudi is holding a bronze shield or medallion. These panels contain scenes from the Old Testament, though it is hard to see what scenes are represented here due to the discoloring of these shields. And that Michelangelo was not that interested in these shields becomes clear by looking at the two shields surrounding the scene of God dividing the water from the earth. For some unknown reason, he left one of those shields blank. All but two of the ignudi are seated, and none of them take the same position. And as for the meaning of these males, there has been a lot of speculation, as they do not directly connect to any biblical stories. One theory is that the males represent human perfection. Another theory is that Michelangelo's initial idea may have been to create angels instead, but that he took away their wings, creating these iconic nudes. In the end, they ended up like a mix between the ideal classical nude and a kind of modern superhero. So this is the end of this four-part series about the Sistine Chapel ceiling. We went over all the main scenes on this ceiling, as well as a series of 14 scenes of the ancestors of Jesus on top of the walls. There are some other elements that we did not discuss in detail, but they mainly serve to fill up the spaces in between the main scenes. You can see how Michelangelo painted several imaginary architectural details to divide the scenes, which becomes particularly clear if we compare the reconstructed image of the ceiling from before Michelangelo started his work with the end result. And then there are some smaller figures, like these bronze nudes, which were painted to fill up the smaller remaining spaces. I hope you enjoyed this series of videos, and if you did not see the other three parts of this series, I can recommend them to you if you enjoyed this video. And if you want to learn even more about this ceiling, I can highly recommend a detailed book called Michelangelo and the Pope Ceiling, written by Ross King. The book goes in great detail about the creation of the ceiling and the circumstances in which that happened. I actually got a good amount of information for these videos from that book. I'll put a link to the book in the description box below. Finally, please hit the like and subscribe buttons if you want to support the channel, and if you have recommendations on art topics that you would like to hear about in future videos, feel free to leave them below in the comment section. Thanks for watching this video.