Vatican Museums

Well. I have found my future employer.

I went to the Vatican Museums on Friday, November 15 with my fellow Bernardians. Going into the day, I was really quite excited. I had heard so many good things about this collection with its endless beauty and high quantity of pieces. My art history teacher informed us that the collection spans the longest time period across the history of time. My art history and theology loving heart was completely fluttering and freaking out the whole time. Walking into the museum I was right away overwhelmed with the number of people who were there but also how much there was to see. We only spent three hours in the whole museum which was not near enough time to appreciate the entirety of the collection. This made me quite sad but also quite excited because this means that I get to visit again by myself, spend as much time as possible, and fully take in the museum.

Among the thousands of pieces in the collection, my favorites were the Laocoon, the Torso Belvedere, the Hall of Maps, and the rooms painted by Raphael. You may be thinking that I am missing a key part that would for sure be my favorite thing. And you would be right. I saved the best for last.

The Sistine Chapel.

The history of this chapel has always been a point of interest and complete Achilles heel for my art history heart. For a long time, I did not really know a lot about the background, I just appreciated the true beauty of Michelangelo’s work. The more I found out about the history of this famous piece of artwork, my appreciation and realization of Michelangelo’s genius and talent inflated. Michelangelo (or Mic as I so lovingly nicknamed him) was a trained sculptor and already pretty well known for this craft. When Pope Julius II asked him to come to Rome and commissioned him to paint the chapel, Mic at first refused. It was not until the Pope told him that this was not him asking, it was him ordering to do so. Mic swallowed his pride and accepted the commission, very well knowing that the Sistine Chapel would be his first-time painting. There are so many stories about how hard it was to paint the Sistine, with him having to paint standing, use only candlelight, and not being able to trace his lines to make sure the math was correct throughout the piece. It was purely his genius, faith, and evolution as a painter and artist that made the Sistine Chapel near mathematically perfect and so popular. Being able to witness the entirety of the chapel for 15 whole minutes was pure bliss. I teared up looking at years of Michelangelo’s work. It made me think, what do you think it would have looked like if he actually wanted to paint the chapel? I still have no words to describe what it was like to follow Mic’s evolution as an artist from Noah Drunk to the enudi to the Creation to the Last Judgement. This chapel stands for so much more than a great artist doing amazing religious paintings. It stands for years of personal evolution and generations of people who flock to Rome to take part in mutual awe of the Sistine Chapel.

“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection” -Michelangelo