\u201cWe know that he was emotionally and psychologically repressed, and this might play into the expression of his genius.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michelangelo was the very definition of a tortured artist. Longhurst suspects he was \u201cprobably on the spectrum\u201d by today\u2019s standards and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. <\/p>\n
His great 16th-century rival, Raphael, was the Pope\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s even wearing his own boots [in the portrait],\u201d says Longhurst. \u201cSo perhaps Michelangelo, who is not beautiful, is more attuned to the sensuous nature of beauty and is himself transcending physical beauty, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
A portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra, circa 1545.<\/p>\n
Five million people visit the Sistine Chapel each year to marvel at Michelangelo\u2019s frescoes, which cover every inch of plaster on the ceiling. More than five centuries on, their creation remains an extraordinary feat.<\/p>\n
Longhurst was 18 when he first saw the frescoes; a guard threw him out for repeatedly lying down on one of the chapel\u2019s marble benches to immerse himself in the view. <\/p>\n
Later, as a guide, he led up to three tour groups a day, an experience he admits became \u201ca little hellish\u201d in such a cramped space.<\/p>\n
Describing the frescoes as \u201cpaintings\u201d is somewhat misleading. Michelangelo embedded pigment from ground marble dust into wet plaster, a process Longhurst likens to tattooing.<\/p>\n
Some of the detailing is incredibly intricate. Fine lines around a woman\u2019s lips in one of The Genesis panels are believed to have been created using a single strand of hair from a horse\u2019s tail.<\/p>\n
Michelangelo spent four solitary, back-breaking years on the scaffolding, his nose almost to the ceiling \u2013 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. <\/p>\n
Yet for all its magnificence, the viewer\u2019s physical distance from the work makes it difficult to truly appreciate the mastery on display. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Enabling people to see the frescoes up close, as the artist himself did, is the idea behind Michelangelo – A Different View. <\/p>\n
Endorsed by the Vatican, the exhibition features more than 50 reproductions \u2013 including life-size Genesis panels \u2013 printed on to fabric and literally laid out at your feet. Known as sublimation, the process is a technological feat in itself. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
These images were then digitised and \u201cflattened\u201d to counter the way the frescoes curve to follow the natural lines of the ceiling.<\/p>\n