“We know that he was emotionally and psychologically repressed, and this might play into the expression of his genius.”
Michelangelo was the very definition of a tortured artist. Longhurst suspects he was “probably on the spectrum” by today’s standards and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
His great 16th-century rival, Raphael, was the Pope’s favourite, having all the charm and good looks the older man lacked. It was Raphael who conspired to have Michelangelo given the Sistine Chapel commission, with all its technical challenges, hoping the master sculptor would embarrass himself and fail.
Michelangelo had the last laugh, living to 88 (Raphael died in his 30s) and painting himself into his masterpiece, as the model for a fresco of the prophet Jeremiah.
“He’s even wearing his own boots [in the portrait],” says Longhurst. “So perhaps Michelangelo, who is not beautiful, is more attuned to the sensuous nature of beauty and is himself transcending physical beauty, too.”
A portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra, circa 1545.
Five million people visit the Sistine Chapel each year to marvel at Michelangelo’s frescoes, which cover every inch of plaster on the ceiling. More than five centuries on, their creation remains an extraordinary feat.
Longhurst was 18 when he first saw the frescoes; a guard threw him out for repeatedly lying down on one of the chapel’s marble benches to immerse himself in the view.
Later, as a guide, he led up to three tour groups a day, an experience he admits became “a little hellish” in such a cramped space.
Describing the frescoes as “paintings” is somewhat misleading. Michelangelo embedded pigment from ground marble dust into wet plaster, a process Longhurst likens to tattooing.
Some of the detailing is incredibly intricate. Fine lines around a woman’s lips in one of The Genesis panels are believed to have been created using a single strand of hair from a horse’s tail.
Michelangelo spent four solitary, back-breaking years on the scaffolding, his nose almost to the ceiling – somehow able to visualise how this panorama of complex, three-dimensional images would come together in perfect harmony when admired from the ground, more than 20m below.
Yet for all its magnificence, the viewer’s physical distance from the work makes it difficult to truly appreciate the mastery on display.
Frescoes of the sibyls and prophets line one wall, while life-size reproductions of The Genesis panels are laid out on the floor, only a couple of metres below a viewing platform.
Enabling people to see the frescoes up close, as the artist himself did, is the idea behind Michelangelo – A Different View.
Endorsed by the Vatican, the exhibition features more than 50 reproductions – including life-size Genesis panels – printed on to fabric and literally laid out at your feet. Known as sublimation, the process is a technological feat in itself.
Access was given to a series of slides taken of the frescoes in the 90s, following a 12-year restoration of the Sistine Chapel to remove centuries-old layers of soot and candle wax.
These images were then digitised and “flattened” to counter the way the frescoes curve to follow the natural lines of the ceiling.
Over the past few years, the exhibition has been staged around the world, attracting huge crowds. In 2021, it opened in Auckland, only to be cut short by Covid.
Now, an upscaled version has gone on display in Wellington, with The Genesis panels laid out as the centrepiece, framed by the sibyl and prophet frescoes, and a near full-sized reproduction of The Last Judgment.
“The Last Judgment” fresco, reproduced here, fills the entire western wall behind the Sistine Chapel altar. Photo / Marty Melville
Longhurst, who is conducting VIP tours of the exhibition (as he did in Auckland), was so excited he drove down in the early hours of the morning to be on site at Tākina when the show opened just before Christmas.
A knowledge-based theologian raised in the Catholic faith, his interpretation of the symbolism behind Michelangelo’s work is both fascinating and provocative.
While the artist was a deeply religious man, Longhurst says he was also depicting humanity’s creation story as an allegory, informed by his personal interest in biology and science.
That’s not as disanalogous as it sounds for a man of faith. Both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are known to have dissected cadavers to more deeply understand human anatomy.
Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the chapel, gave him such a free hand that it was almost three years before he was given a viewing of the work.
The Creation of Adam, the most iconic of The Genesis frescoes.
In the “finger of God” fresco from The Genesis, Longhurst points out, Adam clearly has a navel, indicating an umbilical cord that once connected him to a mother.
Behind him is the shadowy outline of a breast, while God’s billowing robe not only depicts the cross-section of a brain – symbolising the intellect that gives human beings free will – but a uterus contracting after childbirth.
“This completely deconstructs the popular narrative about the famous touch,” he says. “No, it’s the breaking of the umbilical cord, what te reo calls ‘te wehenga’, the great separation.
“The green is the land, the whenua, which in the Hebrew tradition is adamah, of course. Māori would recognise it as Papatūānuku, the earth mother. We call the father figure God, but for Māori, that’s the sky father, Ranginui.
“The universality of these creation myths transcends culture and shows this is not just a Renaissance artwork – this is the cosmological story.”
As Longhurst notes, Michelangelo himself never called this panel “The Creation of Adam”, as it’s now officially known. ”It’s the birth of humanity, not the birth of Adam. Call it what you like – the Big Bang theory – it’s all there on the ceiling.
“It’s not about the belief for me; it’s about the knowledge and the understanding. That’s what is important and timeless about Michelangelo’s work. For people from all different backgrounds, it speaks to them, too.”
Visitors to the Sistine Chapel crane their necks to admire the ceiling, more than 20m above them.
Traditionalists will find much of Longhurst’s analysis challenging. Careful examination of Adam’s navel also suggests a mons pubis, he says, representing female genitalia.
“So it’s not even really Adam, it’s the earthling. It’s both genders.”
Surely Longhurst is taking a revisionist approach here, introducing concepts such as gender fluidity to reshape the artist’s narrative through a modern lens?
And did Michelangelo really place Eve as a divine creation on an equal footing with Adam? That seems a radical upending of convention and aesthetically, the artist was clearly drawn to men, whether he explored that attraction on a sexual level or not.
Longhurst doesn’t flinch. “The question becomes how much am I reading into this and how much am I drawing from the scholarship and also the primary sources,” he parries. “It’s all of that.
“We know the conversations Michelangelo was having with his students, and we know some of the feminist literature of the time that he was reading. Remember, Michelangelo had two biographies written about him in his lifetime.
“I push back strongly at the criticism of him or this work as being misogynistic. Feminist theologians refer to this as male patriarchy, when it’s really not. I mean, look at God’s non-creative arm. It’s very clearly around a woman.”
“David and Goliath”, one of the corner scenes in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes.
While the life-size Genesis panels are undeniably the real showcase, the exhibition also features The Quattrocento, 14 paintings by other artists of the era, including Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and Cosimo Roselli.
Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, painted 25 years after the ceiling frescoes were completed, is another stunning piece on display.
Featuring some 390 individual figures, the original covers the wall behind the Sistine Chapel’s altar. Its physical sensuality – including men kissing in Heaven – caused such a scandal that clothing was later painted onto some of the naked bodies after Michelangelo’s death.
Each iteration of Michelangelo – A Different View is curated remotely by international production manager Michael Schaumer to custom-fit the space.
To ensure quality control and protect against pirated versions, fresh reproductions are created for every new exhibition, under licence from the Vatican, and must be destroyed when the show closes.
Entry tickets include a QR code to download an audio guide on your mobile phone (BYO headphones or buds). A reading guide in English and te reo is also available.
“We’re not supposed to be spectators, just standing back and looking at how beautiful these paintings are,” says Longhurst. “Michelangelo wants us to be participants and follow him into the artworks.
“For me, the Sistine Chapel asks a lot of questions but it also answers them. This is what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God.”
Michelangelo – A Different View is on at Wellington’s Tākina exhibition centre, opposite Te Papa, until February 8.
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.