4 years
How Long Did It Take Michaelangelo To Paint The Ceiling Of The Sistine Chapel?
Bit over four years, from July of 1508 to October of 1512.
Michaelangelo really did paint most of it himself. But he had a team of assistants to mix the plaster and paints, apply the plaster, run up and down the custom-made special scaffolding, and even paint some bits and pieces (like the sky and small figures).
There were a lot of setbacks in the painting. Michaelangelo had been trained as a Fresco painter, but it wasn't his love or strength. He had a lot to learn. Especially as the painting was challenging technically -- painting onto wet plaster. The plaster tended to go moldy at first. He had to paint from an uncomfortable position: while standing up but leaning back, since it was onto a ceiling.
And it was a curved ceiling, so Michaelangelo had to distort his drawing slightly, so that the figures and scenes would look correct for observers below.
Michaelangelo is described as working "night and day" to get the project done. But most of that would not actually have been "painting". There was drawing, supervising, mixing, and a lot of planning to do every day, too. The great artist is also famous for huge rows with his assistants and having to fire and hire whole teams at a time -- finding new competent people to help would have taken up a lot of time, too.
Michaelangelo really did paint most of it himself. But he had a team of assistants to mix the plaster and paints, apply the plaster, run up and down the custom-made special scaffolding, and even paint some bits and pieces (like the sky and small figures).
There were a lot of setbacks in the painting. Michaelangelo had been trained as a Fresco painter, but it wasn't his love or strength. He had a lot to learn. Especially as the painting was challenging technically -- painting onto wet plaster. The plaster tended to go moldy at first. He had to paint from an uncomfortable position: while standing up but leaning back, since it was onto a ceiling.
And it was a curved ceiling, so Michaelangelo had to distort his drawing slightly, so that the figures and scenes would look correct for observers below.
Michaelangelo is described as working "night and day" to get the project done. But most of that would not actually have been "painting". There was drawing, supervising, mixing, and a lot of planning to do every day, too. The great artist is also famous for huge rows with his assistants and having to fire and hire whole teams at a time -- finding new competent people to help would have taken up a lot of time, too.
4 years and 4 months
18 years
