Restoring the Chapel

...thoughts on change over time...

Photo Cliff Scholz

As a child I was fascinated by Michelangelo's fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel. Though not particularly religious by any means, my family did have a large, lavishly illustrated coffee table book on the topic, most likely owing to my mother’s fascination with art and culture. At age 8 or 9, I was amused by the nudes of course, but even more, I gazed with horrified fascination at the grisly Last Judgment scenario on the chapel’s altar wall, especially the details depicting the souls of the damned being dragged or otherwise finding themselves en route to hell. One way to get there — on an expedited basis, or so it seemed — featured the devil in the role of captain of a nearly capsizing boat overloaded with lost souls. Standing with an oar held aloft like a batter at home plate, he’s cocked and ready to deliver a full-force blow to the heads of his unfortunate passengers just as they go overboard. His eyes maniacally intent, he ain’t likely gonna miss.

Now, this was in the late 1960s and early 70s when I was taking all this in. What I did not know is that the artworks reproduced in the photos looked nothing like they did when they were first completed in the 1500s. In truth, we’ll never know exactly what they looked like back then — we can only conjecture. One thing seems certain, however: hundreds of years of soot from candles and oil lamps had accumulated on the surface of the frescoes, obscuring the once-vibrant colors of these art masterpieces.

And that’s what got me thinking about these famous artworks again last weekend. In the shower, of all places, these thoughts came pouring down on my head. I was aware that a monumental restoration effort had been completed long after I looked at those pictures as a child, but I’d never followed up to see the results. I was reasonably confident, however, that starting back when those paintings were new, for each succeeding generation of visitors to the chapel, the change from brilliantly hued renderings to more sepia-toned versions of the same had likely been imperceptible over time. And I pondered, thinking about that, if such darkenings happen in other areas of life, and possibly within shorter timespans. Then I looked at the condition of my own bathtub and tiles and recognized…well, of course they do.

But while a little scouring powder will aid in the restoration and brightening of our bathroom tiles here to some degree, I was wondering instead about moods and pervasive feeling states and how they can darken, and how we can get used to them being that way.

I was even wondering if the biological optimism and vitality that underlie our moods might over time and by degrees become encrusted with overtones of muted despair and the umbrage of lowered expectations, perhaps with the brighter pigments of life supported by thinner pleasures, and joys of rapidly fading intensity. And I conjectured that all of these things could take place without people even noticing much. Including me.

I don’t believe in randomness. When a thought moves me, I move.

So I did a little online research after I toweled off and got dressed. What I found was that beginning in 1984 the frescoes had undergone a lengthy, laborious restoration process that revealed, among other things, the fantastic colors used by the Renaissance master, colors the visiting public had not seen in centuries, still present but hidden under the accumulated soot and grime. You could say the Sistine Chapel got a bath. The restoration process also occasioned enormous controversy. For example, Michelangelo had apparently painted some of the details onto dry plaster. Unlike the paint applied to wet plaster, these details — including, according to one source, somebody’s eyes — disappeared forever into the container of cleaning solution. Those eyes will never again gaze down on chapel visitors.

You can see some before-and-after photos linked here if you want to compare for yourself.

Also, according to more than one account I found online, the cleaning of the frescoes meant that some parts of art history had to be rewritten. Apparently the darkened tones taken on by the artworks in the chapel had been thought by some scholars to be intentional on Michelangelo’s part. Now don’t get me wrong, I rather like effect of chiaroscuro in paintings where dark backgrounds heighten the impression of dramatic luminosity in their subjects. It’s just that those scholars were pretty much certainly wrong about Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

The cleaning process revealed those brilliant colors. And yes, there were tradeoffs. I don’t wish to fault those who made some difficult decisions and undertook the arduous and painstaking restoration of these strange and culturally defining masterworks. Time might march on, it might traipse on, or, as it has sometimes seemed to be the case in recent years, time might stagger on like a lost drunk tottering from lamppost to lamppost long after midnight — but it does seem to continue. The frescoes started to degrade the moment they were finished. That’s just what happens.

More interesting to me is the fact that all the photos through which I came to know these artworks were taken pre-restoration. For centuries the discoloration and darkening proceeded, the cracking too, the flaking, and the often misguided attempts at repair. By the time the frescoes were photographed and printed in the books I paged through as a child, those paintings were dark in their coloration. People accepted them as such, art scholars included. And every last person who remembered how colorful they really were underneath all that scuzz and how vibrant they must have been with all their original details intact had been dead for a very, very long time indeed.

My concern here is that it may be possible for that kind of unseen darkening to happen in myself and others, and maybe even in a society as a whole. Possibly even on an accelerating time scale. And not just for people of somewhat advanced years like myself, but for people of any age. What happens, for example, when children and young adults are systematically deprived of hope, of a world that makes sense, of a world that seems to have a place for them and feels worth living in? Oh, and encourage them to start their young lives in debt, too. Normalize it. That’ll throw some shade on the little angels.

So yes, I’m concerned about a cumulative darkening, a darkening that we get used to because it seems everyone else has gotten used to it. I’m concerned also that it may seem impolite to talk about such things, given the fear that to do so might darken the collective mood yet further. I’m even concerned that darkness might grow in the silences that result from us not openly discussing all this. And overall I’m concerned about a darkening that we accept and embody and thus empower and unconsciously replicate and project into our world just because it seems to be what is, or it’s all we know.

Thing is, underneath all that, underneath the burdens we carry that seem to originate in the current times and even beneath the encumbrances we inherit from history itself, is a kind of newness, and in that newness, far beyond any mere images on mere walls, the colors of life are still there to be seen in all their radiant loveliness.

I suggest: Let the Sistine Chapel be what it is. It’s beautiful, it’s horrible, it’s a product of its times. Good luck preserving it. It’s still degrading.

I’m focused now on matters much more intimate and more immediate.

Questions like these:

If I carry my own chapel within me, what’s it feel like here? Has it gotten a shade or two darker over time?

Can I still experience the vibrancy of my own living colors? Can I see and feel them in myself?

And finally:

What’s my real offering in this place? What am I bringing to life?