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 Michelangelo's The Last Judgement Restoration of the Sistine Chapel Scott 952 (1994) For the next three months, visitors to the Sistine Chapel are in for a bit of an unpleasant surprise. Scaffolding has been erected to begin a restoration project on the magnificent fresco by Michelangelo, "The Last Judgment", which towers over the altar of the chapel. The souvenir sheet shown at the top of the page, focusing on the figures of Jesus and Mary from the fresco, was issued in 1994 following restoration work done on the fresco thirty years ago. Here is a view of the "Last Judgment" from a photo taken in 2017:  "The Last Judgment" by Michelangelo Photo by Burkhard Mücke From Wikimedia Commons, used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license Books have been written to describe this monumental work of art, so no attempt will be made to describe it or recount the history of the Sistine Chapel. Suffice it to say that the Sistine Chapel is arguably one of the greatest repositories of art in the world. The current restoration work, which was announced last summer, is a "cleaning intervention" to remove what has been described as a “widespread whitish film” over the fresco. The scheduled project comes about thirty years after the so-called “restoration of the century” was completed on the work, which revealed the brilliant colors of Michelangelo’s masterpiece that had been glossed over by soot, smoke and other pollutants over the years. While the restoration work is being completed, the Sistine Chapel will remain open, but the original fresco will be obstructed from the view of visitors. The restorers will work behind a high-definition reproduction of the painting and scaffolding will cover the entire surface of the fresco. This will allow the specialists to restore the fresco's original character and brilliance as quickly as possible. By clicking on the Vatican News article in the References, one can view a photograph of the scaffolding that has been erected for the project. From the mid-1960’s through the mid-1990’s, an extensive renovation of the Sistine Chapel was undertaken. Completed in a series of phases over thirty years, cleaning and restoration was performed on the works of art produced by the greats of the Renaissance era, including Perugino, Botticelli, and Rosselli. In addition, the masterpieces of Michelangelo—the magnificent ceiling and lunettes, as well as The Last Judgement—were restored. From 1991 through 2002, Vatican City issued five sets of stamps documenting the restoration of the Sistine Chapel. The first two sets, from 1991 (Scott 870 to 881) and 1994 (Scott 944 to 952), focused on the works of Michelangelo. The last three sets, issued in consecutive years 2000 (Scott 1156-1159), 2001 (Scott 1172-1175) and 2002 (Scott 1215-1218) looked at the other works located in the Sistine Chapel by some of the greats of the Renaissance era. REFERENCES: |
