Video: Mexican pensioner recreates the Sistine Chapel: "My frescoes are better than the original"
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
For the inhabitants of both Americas, to see the sights of the Old World, it is necessary to overcome a huge distance and fly over the ocean. However, those who want to see the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel can go a little closer - to Mexico City. There are, of course, not the works of Michelangelo themselves, but their fairly exact copy performed by a retired local designer. Moreover, the pensioner claims that his frescoes will be even better than the original.
Miguel Francisco Macias started his project after personally visiting the Vatican in 1999. Then he walked through the Vatican museums and, seeing the pearl of the collection - the famous work of Michelangelo, was shocked by its beauty, scale and monumentality.
Returning home to Mexico, Miguel discovered one church in his hometown - the Church of Perpetuo Socorro (Spanish for Infinite Help), whose vault was almost the same size as the Sistine Chapel. And then the designer came up with the idea to repeat the masterpiece here in Mexico City.
Michelangelo painted his frescoes directly on the vault of the chapel. However, Miguel decided not to make such sacrifices. He divided the image into 14 canvases, each 14 meters wide, and planned to paint them first and then attach them to the ceiling.
Due to the fact that the vaults of the Church of Perpetuo Socorro are lower than the vaults of the Sistine Chapel, the image appears larger and, therefore, better visible. “The height of the Sistine Chapel is 20 meters,” says Miguel, “and the church is only 10 meters high. This is why the image looks better here."
It took Michelangelo four years (1508-1512) to complete the entire cycle of frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, while Miguel has been working with volunteers on his project for 18 years. But the fact that his project took so long does not bother the pensioner - “This is a divine job,” explains Miguel.
Despite the fact that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is the "hallmark" of the Vatican museums, there are many other equally interesting things that are worth seeing when visiting. We talked about these sights in our article. "Vatican Museums".
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