The Italian renaissance has arrived at CambridgeSide. Sandwiched between a Foot Locker and TJ Maxx on the second floor of the mall, discover the special exhibition “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel,” a collection of 34 out of the 60-odd frescoes adorning the sumptuous interior of one of the Vatican’s signature tourist attractions, on display in the form of life-sized reproductions.
Michelangelo undertook the commission at the start of the 16th century, laboring for years on his back to decorate the chapel’s ceiling with Biblical stories and, later, added his famous depiction of “The Last Judgment” over the altar. He favored bright colors and bold designs to catch the eyes of viewers observing the frescoes from a distance. But even with ingenious design, guests to the chapel in the Renaissance up to the present day inevitably miss the smaller details.
Martin Biallas, the colorful chief executive of See Global, which has toured the exhibition from Shanghai to the State Fair of Texas, promises to upgrade the consumer experience. “If you come here,” Biallas says, “you will see these frescoes like no pope has ever seen them before, because no pope was ever up that close.” For a modest entry fee of $20 to $35 (category discounts available), you can outclass a pope. Not bad.
In person, the experience feels like a cross between an art gallery and a trade show. The reproductions, awash in industrial lighting, are arranged according to theme. Sibyls, prophets, ancestors of Christ, marquee events from the Old Testament, images of the creation narrative. Michelangelo drew from diverse mythological, religious and historical subjects, which he assimilated into a single, awe-inspiring vision in celebration of Christianity.
Each image is accompanied by a small placard with breezy art historical gloss. There are short educational videos on the nature of fresco production. A pious mix of what Biallas calls his “sacred choir of Top 40s” plays softly in the background. And visitors can learn more about each image by following along with a complimentary audio guided tour, available via a smartphone app.
The exhibition lives up to Biallas’ promise. No alarms or security guards stand in the way of close inspection of the reproduced images. Once you pull up close, what is it that you are seeing precisely? Often it’s an image whose quality of reproduction, in terms of resolution, does not stand up to careful scrutiny.
The resolution is adequate to appreciate the energy of Michelangelo’s brushstrokes and geometry of his designs. But there’s a general haze over many of the reproductions, licensed from Bridgeman Images, which often look better on the tote bags and coffee mugs in the gift shop than their “life-sized” counterparts in the actual exhibition. “The Great Flood” is one fresco, in particular, whose resolution is so poor that it would likely not have made the cut if not for its popular theme.
An additional odd effect is achieved in the reproduction of the fresco as a flat panel, contrary to the original curvature of the chapel’s ceiling. In this fashion a distortion is introduced into the image. It’s the same type of distortion that we notice when we transpose the geography of a spherical globe onto the flat surface of a map. Elements at the outer margins become magnified in size.
This distortion effect was most visible with the reproductions pulled from the ceiling’s margins, where the horizontal of the ceiling meets the vertical of the supporting walls at its most intense degree of curvature. The flattened version of the fresco of Ezekiel, for example, at this margin, represented the prophet as a kind late period Orson Welles, broad as a school bus and full of flair.
We are reminded, in this instance and others, that Michelangelo had a very specific kind of viewer in mind for his frescoes. A viewer that was both distant and at a certain angle, to allow the limitations of human optics and the architecture of the space to conspire in the creation of an illusion both holy and utterly profane.
At some level Biallas’ passion to bring Michelangelo’s frescoes closer for inspection is a corruption of the artist’s intent. Art wants what it wants, the heart wants what it wants, and the two are not always pining after the same thing. But 500 years after the Renaissance artist completed his masterwork, who’s to say that we can’t keep finding new ways to enjoy it? See it for yourself through mid-May.
“Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel,” through May 10 at CambridgeSide, 100 CambridgeSide Place, East Cambridge. $20 to $35.
About The Author
