BOOKS

Revisiting the Renaissance through Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’

Reviewed by Andrew Junker | July 2, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good “making of” documentary. This is especially true when the work of art — a novel or film or painting — can’t seem to get out of your head.

It’s not enough to listen to your favorite record; you need to know who engineered it, what else he’s done, how they got that drum sound, etc. You want to know everything.

For lovers of Michelangelo and Renaissance art, James A. Connor provides a bit of this background information in his new book, “The Last Judgment.”

Connor is a joy to read because he is so enthusiastic and informed about his topic. The inspiration to write the book came when the author visited Rome with his wife and took the obligatory Vatican Museum tour.

As the tourists are herded from room to room of sculptures, maps and tapestries, they eventually end up in the Sistine Chapel, famous for being the location where the College of Cardinals elects the pope and also for Michelangelo’s ceiling.

In fact, Connor himself was craning his neck, peering up at the distant fresco when he had given up and was ready for a drink or a gelato. He walked over to exit the chapel when the other work of art residing in the church caught his eye.

It’s a massive depiction of the Last Judgment frescoed on the wall behind the chapel’s altar. A much smaller group of tourists were looking at this painting, but it transfixed Connor so much, he had to know everything about it. And he went about researching and writing this book.

But “The Last Judgment” concerns itself with so much more than the fresco itself. Connor takes the reader from Rome to Florence to Bologna and back. He leads the reader into the halls of the Medici, to the quarries of Carrara and along the Tiber.

He peoples the book with terrifically corrupt popes who make dukes of their sons and cardinals of their nephews, jealous artists and fiery demagogues.

This is the Renaissance, of course, and there’s enough war, murder, betrayal, looting and intrigue for anyone.

At the center of the book, though, is this painting, which Michelangelo undertook late in life. Connor does a wonderful job taking the reader through each vast area of the fresco, analyzing and working through the art.

But the greatest strength of “The Last Judgment” is the way in which Connor paints a picture of the environment that influenced Michelangelo to create the fresco in his startlingly fresh way.

Reflecting on the theological and social realities of the Renaissance leads readers down paths they might not expect to find in an art history book. It touches on so many topics which are reflected in the painting.

For instance, see how the Christian idea of the resurrection of the body influences the Last Judgment and how the Last Judgment, in turn, can help us approach the resurrection of the body.

“The Christian tradition refuses to idealize the resurrection, refused to make it something that is figurative, or to make it a metaphor not to be taken literally,” Connor writes.

“It is just that literalness that is at the heart of Michelangelo’s fresco. There is a great deal of symbolic power in the painting, but that symbolism is more of an expression of Michelangelo’s faith in the reality of the resurrection than a subversion of it.”

Connor also explores a possible Copernican connection in the design of the Last Judgment. Rather than portraying the figures in the fresco in a static, hierarchical arrangement, Christ stands near the center, like the Sun, with the souls of the saved and the damned circling around Him like planets.

“The Last Judgment” is a great window into so many fascinating rooms: the Renaissance, the papacy, Michelangelo and the fresco itself, which is often overshadowed by the more famous Sistine ceiling. 

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Media critic Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.