Attempts at demolishing Michelangelo’s masterpiece over its nudes

Sixteenth century condemnations of the Sistine Chapel paintings

The Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, repeatedly at risk of being destroyed, scrapped off or painted on by 16th century Popes and critics. The most criticised artwork of the Renaissance. Photo Wikimedia.

Long before Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, about 35,000 years ago the first images of human beings were carved in the nude. Today, 11 billion miles away in the immensity of space, Pioneer 10 spacecraft travels the universe carrying a plaque illustrating what humans look like : one naked man and one naked woman. From the earliest days of sculpting and painting, the nude has been one of the defining features of mankind’s creativity.

During the Renaissance, artists rediscovered the art of ancient Greece and Rome, when gods looked human, and the athlete incarnated human perfection. But why the need for nudity? According to Plato, “it is not long since the Greeks thought it disgraceful and ridiculous, as most of the barbarians do now, for men to be seen naked”. In Ancient Greece nudity meant civilisation while considering the nude “disgraceful and ridiculous” was for barbarians. Athletic and intellectual achievements were related, as the gymnasium -the very word comes from ‘nude’- also had a library, to exercise both mind and body.
Nudity expressed the harmony between inner and outer excellence, while clothing revealed one’s status in life, as a general, a magistrate or a matron. Being in the…