This is a hallway in the Vatican Musuems. The Vatican has an
awesome assortment of artwork and statues, including the Sistine
Chapel. It was pretty impressive. The last Sunday of every month
is free to get in, and it just so happened that we went on that
day.
You're not suppossed to take pictures of any kind in the Sistine
Chapel, but I couldn't resist. You actually do better to scan the
postcards, but these pictures came out surprisingly well. This is
Michaelangelo's Last Judgement. It's so amazingly cool.
To the right and down from Christ is St. Bartholomew holding a
knife in one hand and a human skin in the other. The face on the human skin is a
self-portrait of Michaelangelo. There's much more to this
painting than shown in this photograph, it covers the whole wall
and it's really big. The scene of hell in the lower right (not
shown here) is really cool. Michaelangelo painted everybody nude,
but there was a campaign to paint over the "tender
places", so later they were painted over with cloths that
come out of nowhere to cover the figures.
This is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There are about ten of
these panels that tell different stories. It's pretty amazing.
Michaelangelo was clearly the best ever at painting and
sculpting. The restoration on the ceiling was pretty cool, too,
as it looks as good as the day it was painted.
This is where Adam and Eve get kicked out the Garden of Eden.
Michaelangelo was a bit of a pufter, so he only used male models.
Check out the biceps on Eve:
That is one buff chick.
I like this one because God looks really pissed off here, and he
always has his posse around him, like in the Creation one at the
top of the page.