Talk:Sistine Chapel ceiling

message: Removed request for more images of spandrels, because there was only one. There are now four.
--Amandajm 13:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: Some time ago (a year or two, perhaps) this article stated a well-known fact, that Michelangelo was in a sort of flow state or "in the zone" while painting la volta della Capella Sistina. I could not find this assertion upon reading the article again as of 20 of January, 2012. I wonder why would that be removed from the article, being that it is not only interesting but highly relevant for the psychology of arts. Anyone with sources is welcome to add that bit about Michelangelo's flow state again to the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.113.201.87 (talk) 01:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have looked through the history and can find any evidence of that opinion in this article.  I want to stress that it is "opinion" rather than "a well-known fact".  Amandajm (talk) 04:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Michelangelo's state of flow ("in the zone")

message: This page has contained one major and several lesser errors from the outset. I'm going to have to rewrite that which is seriously inaccurate, and correct the lesser errors. 
The diagram needs fixing as well.
Can someone with the skills to do it please contact me!
--Amandajm 00:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors

message: Just a thought... isn't creating images of god a sin in christianity? Could somebody clarify why the church would allow pictures of god on the ceiling of a chapel? 81.221.166.31 13:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Images of God

message: Should there be a small section on the restoration in the 80's? Perhaps. --Kansaikiwi 12:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Restoration 

message: * Pope. If you are writing about popes in a general way, then you don't use a capital. If you write about a specific pope, then you do, even if he is not named. eg. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelagelo. Michelangelo was working on the Pope's tomb. 
* Church. The word is capitalised if it means not just a building but the Catholic Church or the Holy Church throughout the World. In this article every reference to "Church" means the Catholic Church and must be capitalised. 
* Humankind. This is a race (an inclusive one) and needs a capital in this instance. 
* Virtues, qualities, concepts etc. Christianity, Humanism, Sin, Redemption, Faith, Hope, Love etc. are all given caps when they are used in this sense. 
--Amandajm 18:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Humankind" does not take a capital letter, least of all in an encylopaedia! Christianity and Humanism might need capitals but Sin, Redemption, Faith, Hope, Love most certainly do not. This is not a devotional text but an encyclopaedia with a neutral point of view. I will change this unnecessary and demonstrative piety ... GPinkerton (talk) 04:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Capital letters in this article 

message: When I was a young school kid (circa 1991, I guess), I remember sitting in class and watching a news report on Channel One claiming that as part of the ceiling restoration, they were soon going to be painting clothing onto some/all (can't remember) of the currently-nude people in the paintings.   They showed "artist's renderings" of the pending changes for a few sections of the ceiling, with all the former nude people now wrapped up in cloth like Jesus wears in traditional crucifixion paintings (like this one.  I was only 11-ish at the time but I was outraged that they would do something so horrible and ridiculous; plus the "edits" looked obvious and awful.  I can't remember much about the news report (it was ~15 years ago and I was in elementary school), but they made out like the decision had already been made and the censorship was going to be done to the ceiling in the near future.  Never having heard otherwise, I've been upset and angry about it ever since then, not just about the defilement of such a famous artwork, but also about people's apparant apathy and ignorance because I never saw any other coverage or protests about the censorship.
But I just recently checked several Wikipedia articles, and I can't find any reference that this ever actually happened!  Did it?  The article mentions controversy about cleaning the grime from the ceiling, but it says nothing about painting clothing on the nude figures, which would surely be a hundred times as controversial!
If it never happened, then what was the deal with that news report I saw circa 1991?  Were there originally plans to conceal the nudity that were later (thankfully) abandoned?  Who drew the awful "updated version" that I saw on the news?  Or is my memory completely faulty, and maybe I've confused the Sistine Chapel with some other work of art that was being subjected to a censorship restoration?
4.89.247.77 02:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was clothing added during the restoration? 

message: I've just rewritten most of this article. With regards to links, I know that there are people out there who want everything linked every time and spend a lot of time doing it. 
I haven't chosen to do that here. Terms that are used repeatedly do not require a link every time. Michelangelo is linked at the beginning. So are other important words and names  like Pope Julius II, Vasari, Ignudi, Creation etc. Subsequently, they are not linked every time they are mentioned, in order to make other significant links readily apparent. 
--Amandajm 04:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Links 

message: Before "tightening up" well-written prose, one needs to consider what one is cutting. 
A sentence that said that "War broke out" became linked by a colon to the fact that the Pope's tomb sculptures were not finished. No!. That isn't what was either written or implied. The war was not the reason that the sculptures weren't finished.
*Michelangelo didn't want the ceiling job; he wanted to continue on the tomb sculptures.
*War broke out and the Pope went away to fight, distracting him from the ceiling. (the fact that the Pope was a military leader got cut out as well) 
* Michelangelo left Rome and went back to sculpting but
* the sculptures were "never to be finished" because 
* the Pope returned, victorious, and got Michelangelo to leave the scupture and do the ceiling.
--Amandajm 14:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "tightening up prose" 

message: It's pretty good, and I felt it worthy of GA.  The automated peer review suggests:
*Avoid including galleries in articles, as per Wikipedia:Galleries. Common solutions to this problem include moving the gallery to a separate page, like Gallery of Sistine Chapel ceiling.[?]
*There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 2 metres, use 2 metres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 2 metres.[?]
*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km2, and pounds -> lb.[?]
*Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.[?]
*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.[?]
*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading ==Magellan's journey==, use ==Journey==.[?]
*Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.[?]
*This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.[?]
*Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: meter (A) (British: metre), metre (B) (American: meter), recognise (B) (American: recognize), realise (B) (American: realize),  grey (B) (American:  gray), mold (A) (British: mould).
*Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
**Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant -  “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
**Avoid misplaced formality: “in order to/for” (-> to/for), “thereupon”, “notwithstanding”, etc.
*Avoid using contractions like (outside of quotations): Don't.
*As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
*Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]
I realize that's quite a bit but a lot of those are minor, and while I strongly suggest addressing them, I don't feel they're reason to not pass it as GA.  DoomsDay349 17:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Passed GA

message: Anthony Bertram discusses this as a hidden layer in the meanings of these works and notes that "The principle opposed forces in this conflict were his passionate admiration for classical beauty and his profound, almost mystical Catholicism, his homosexuality, and his horror of carnal sin combined with a lofty Platonic concept of love." 
I've editted out the reference to dualism in the Ancestors and the depressed state of the "religious figures". 
I think that Bertram's interpretation is much too narrow in seeing this as reflecting Michelangelo's own personal conflict about one personal matter. I think that Bertram has greatly underestimated the depth of Michelangelo's knowledge of Theology and the power of his creativity as a story-teller. If you read this whole article again you will (perhaps) understand why. 
The thing that should be noted is that the subject of the whole ceiling (and the ancestor paintings) is Sin. And accompanying the Sin are Grief, Guilt, Fear, Rage, Resentment, Depression, Hopelessness, Loneliness, Physical Illness and all those other horrible things that are part of the human state. If you look hard at the Ancestors, you'll find your own particular sin there among them. Most of them are either in a state of conflict with their partner or are as focussed on themselves as Narcissus was. Paranoia, Vanity, Spite, Envy, Lust, Avarice, Partiality and so on. 
As for the anguished faces of the actors in the narrative panels, they relate directly to the subject matter. Of course Adam and Eve look distraught at being put out of Eden! And of course the people in the Flood painting appear in a state of fear and distress. This is not about Mchelangelo the guilty homosexual. This is about Michelangelo the brilliant story-teller. 
And the expressions of the prophets, they relate closely to their particular prophecies. Jeremiah looks particularly distressed. He is one of the so-called "Major Prophets" and his subject was the downfall of Jerulsalem. His second book is called "Lamentations". 
Personally, when I look at the ignudi around the ceiling, I don't see any sign whatsoever of guilt over the admiration of the human body. And wherever men and women occur together on the ceiling we see them relating to each other in an intimate and natural way. 
--Amandajm 14:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is more a 15th century thing - see Trinity#Less_common_types_of_depiction Johnbod (talk) 12:09, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Michelangelo's psychological state 

message: In Christian teaching, Sin is a given. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Sin is the whole reason that humankind needed the Salvation provided by Jesus Christ. Sin starts with Adam and Eve. 
What Michelangelo has done is provide a background to the Old Covenant between God and the Jewish people through Moses and the New Covenant between God and all humanity through Christ. The way he has done it is very thoughtful and clever. If he had shown all those ancestors as happy well-adjusted people living "Godly" lives, then salvation through Jesus would not have been necessary. So he shows them as normal, squabbling, selfish people. This is the whole reason why th ceiling is about Sin. The Last Judgement picture picks up the theme again.
There is yet another element in the total scheme of the chapel. It is not a painted element. It is the Holy Sacrament of Bread and Wine, representing the continuing presence of the Living Christ. Because of the presence of the sacrament, Michelangelo didn't have to paint anything to represent Christ's incarnation or sacrifice. So the existent fresco of the Birth of Jesus was painted over. 
If you look at the content and expression from a purely Theological point of view, then the whole scheme of the Chapel is drawn together in such a dynamic way by Michelangelo's ceiling that the notion that it might be all about his personal angst gets swamped by an all-embracing and magnificent concept. 
--Amandajm 15:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on the matter of Sin 

message: (discussion transferred from another page)
The final (First day of Creation) image is surely Michelangelo himself, working on the ceiling in the supreme act of creation. I found a website the other day that supported this vview, but I've lost it. The beard is shorter, the face is almost hidden, the figure is workingg above his head. 
As for God creating the Earth, Sun and Moon, the wrathful God has mmuch in common with the Moses for Pope Julius' tomb. It has been said before that Michelangelo represented the Pope as God. Well, if so, it's an image more in keeping with the man who said "Show me with a sword; I know nothing of books!" 
As for the creation of Adam, there's much more of a benvolence in that picture. I've always loved the hand of God which is so square and capabable but hhas delicate fingertips. Its the hand of a man who not only pounded the clay and modelled it to make the man but who also wired the circuits of his brain. 
There's been a study done on Michelangelo's David which indicates that he was almost certainly a stone mason. Several of the models on the ceiling have similar characteristics. What we see in the forearm of Michelangelo's God is the massive development consistent with using a hammer and chisel, in particular the bulge just near the wrist which is the abductor pollicus longus which brings the hand forward in relation to the forearm and is used when hammering in a controlled way (cobbler's tacks as against six inch nails). I'm sure we are looking at Michelangelo's own  arm here. But I can't really say this, can I? I'm sure it falls under the category of original research! 
In quite a lot of late Medieval/Early Renaissance images there is no distinction between God the Creator and God Incarnate so that when God is shown in the Creation stories, he looks just like Jesus in the Redemption episodes, the only difference being that he is often given a triangular halo as against Jesus' triple-rayed halo which symbolises the cross as well as the Trinity. God appears like this in the frescoes at San Gimigniano. There is another picture of the Trinity somewhere... I think a Jesuit statement...which shows the triune God as three identical Jesus-persons all enthroned side-by-side. Rather intimidating
--Amandajm 02:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is more a 15th century thing - see Trinity#Less_common_types_of_depiction Johnbod (talk) 12:09, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "In his own image"

message: wtf. bubble speech from god saying hahaha? thats photoshopped. someone take it out  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.30.134 (talk) 18:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One makes the best of what one has. PiCo 01:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  creation of adam picture 

message: I'm glad Lady CdB didn't see that one! Amandajm 10:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One makes the best of what one has. PiCo 01:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: oh Dear, dear!

message: Someone added this unsouurce statement to the article, with regards to the "Creation of Adam": 
:It has been widely considered to be the Creation of Adam, but Michelangelo's notes, journals and letters reveal that it is the Giving of the Gift of Intellect 
The problem with this statement is that its writer presumes that the two interpretations are mutually exclusive. Of course it is the "Creation of Adam". There is no doubt whatsoever about that. But this isn't the process of God moulding Adam's body from the clay of the earth. It is God giving the gifts that make him human. And part of that is intellect. Amandajm (talk) 22:56, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Gift of Intellect

message: "The final scene of Humankind's degradation is the story of Noah's drunkenness. After the Flood, Noah tills the soil and grows vines. He is shown doing so, in the background of the picture. He becomes drunk and inadvertently exposes himself. His youngest son, Ham, brings his two brothers Shem and Japheth to see the sight but they discreetly cover their father with a cloak. Ham is later cursed by Noah and told that the descendents of his son Canaan will serve Shem and Japheth's descendents forever. Taken together, these three pictures of death, destruction and degradation serve to show that Humankind, represented by Noah's family, had moved a long way from God's perfect creation." (Ref: Goldscheider, 1953)
Goldscheider's memory of Genesis is a bit dodgy - in Genesis 9, Ham sees Noah naked, goes outside and tells his brothers, and they come in, without Ham, walking backwards, and cover Noah with a cloak. Just why they do this is unclear. How they do it is even more unclear - all that walking backwards must surely be risky. Michelangelo's version makes more sense - Ham and his brothers all in the tent together, all looking at the drunken Patriarch. But Mick is, nevertheless, wrong, if by right we mean does he follow the biblical text. Mick was a great man, and allowances must be made - I wouldn't be at all surprised if wasn't actually Moses who slipped up while taking dictation, and Mick is the one who has it right. 
But for Goldscheider there can be no leeway, for his theology is even worse than his biblical knowledge: the story of the Curse of Ham is not one of human degradation (that's all finished with the Flood, which wiped out the wicked - at this point only the virtuous are around on Jehovah's good earth), but of the division of the primal population between the Virtuous (Shem and his descendants, namely the Israelites and the Medes) and the Wicked (Canaan). In other words, this scene is the set-up for the long story of just why God gave the land of Canaan to Israel - Canaan (Ham) was wicked, Israel (Shem) virtuous. Please, remove Goldscheider. PiCo (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Noah 

message: Would this photo provide a benefit to the article if it was incorporated? FSU Guy (talk) 16:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice photo! Amandajm (talk) 07:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Photo 

message: No mention of the image of God having, according to some, the outline of a brain around him?  ABC News    Cave Online BBC]  MrMarmite (talk) 16:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, there seems to be more to the theory than just the brain. It sounds like a whole nother article! Amandajm (talk) 09:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Brain 

message: After working on the GAR, with the article fresh in my mind, I wonder if there is support for working on it a bit more towards getting it to a Featured Article candidacy? Enki H. (talk) 15:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Towards FAC ? 

message: I removed the following unsourced quotation (it's also a bit gratuitous)... it could go back IF a source can be found and IF its relevance to the article can be established. References I found all go back to this article.
Michelangelo  Whatever beauty here on earth is seen / To meet the longing and perceptive eye / Is semblance of that source divine / From whence we all are come. /
In this alone we catch a glimpse of Heaven."
--Enki H. (talk) 16:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Unsourced quotation

message: I missed one issue with the refs during the GAR.  There is a deadlink.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  03:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me, both in the article and on the toolserver page. Might be a problem with the toolserver's algorithm perhaps? Just click on the link to try it, and do post again if the problem is real. I've notified the tool author of the discrepancy. Enki H. (talk) 04:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sistine Chapel ceiling GAR oversight 

message: Please don't change "s" to "z" in the US manner in words that end in "-ise". This article uses English spelling. Amandajm (talk) 13:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that as well as being the modern American spelling, "-ize" is the traditional British English spelling. Greenshed (talk) 22:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not exactly, see American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ise.2C_-ize. The spelling should not be changed (in UK English articles). Johnbod (talk) 23:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling

message: I think the following should be considered before it stays in the article, so I've taken it here (original diff):
*There is a hipothesis, formed by ukrainian sciencist K. Efetov Efetov’s article "Michelangelo’s Secret Message to the Future" ("Chemistry and Life", 2006, №3, a pdf-file; retrieved on October 23, 2009) Efetov’s article "A Shocking Secret of the Sistine Chapel" in Esperanto (from the site of Esperanto periodicals "Gazetejo.org", retrieved on October 23, 2009), that Michelangelo has presented two hidden images on the ceiling: on the fresco "The Creation of Adam" the group of angels around the God is rather similar to the appearance of the human brain, while on the fresco "The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth" after turning it over it is possible to find big pictures of male and female genitals. This discovery is treated by K. Efetov as Michelangelo's idea of two steps of the creation of the world: fertilization (symbolized by genitals) and spiritualization (symbolized by brain).
Efetov seems mainly known for his work on butterflies. 
Johnbod (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hypotheses re: hidden images come from numerous sources, not just Efetov , , , ; "There's absolutely nothing visible that substantiates this extremely far-fetched interpretation," said Colin Eisler, professor of fine arts at New York University. "There's that great line in the Bible, 'Seek and ye shall find.' You can find whatever you like."  If the theories of several viewers from other disciplines merit mention, they can be included with multiple sources, along with responses from those in the field, minus the sensationalism of 'Ukranian controversy'. There are several Rorschach interpretations on the market. Apparently people see what they want to see, confirming their own predispositions. JNW (talk) 17:05, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If the hipotheses about some mysterious images on the frescos are such numerous (by the way, Efetov mentions several in his book, but his own ideas seems to be more well-grounded, than the quoted ones), I think it is worth to create an apart subsection, dedicated to this question. Unfortunately, I don't know English well, so it will be too difficult for me to do the necessary data search in English. Maybe somebody can perform this task? Mevamevo (talk) 00:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Can I suggest that the article is already very long and that the best thing to do would be to create a new page specifically about theories and interpretation, rather than creating a subsection in this article. Amandajm (talk) 13:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ukranian controversy 

message: This has been transferred from the article where an unnamed editor inserted a comment. 
:The sentence which follows should be corrected. It was not Pope Adrian VI who referred to "a stew of naked bodies". It was Pope Paul IV (Caraffa, instigator of the Roman Inquisition) and he was not referring to Michelangelo's ceiling but to Michelangelo's altarpiece, the "Last Judgment"). However, a number of critics were angered by their presence and nudity: Pope Adrian VI described the ceiling as "a stew of naked bodies" and wanted it stripped.ref "Vasari" 
In fact, Pope Adrian, who succeeded Leo X,  was strongly opposed to the painting on the ceiling, considered it immoral and wanted it stripped off.  However, he didn't live long enough to overcome the objections and see it happen.  Amandajm (talk) 03:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't entirely answer the question of who said the "stew" remark, and which surface it applied to - it does fit the Last Judgement rather better. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I cannot find the reference in Vasari and can't locate a source that attributes the quote to Adrian VI via Vasari.   On the other hand, I have found a couple of sources that attribute the statement to Paul VI in reference to the Last Judgement.  I'll remove it. But I would like to track down the source of the attribution to Pope Adrian.  Amandajm (talk) 07:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Stew of naked bodies

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Sistine Chapel ceiling. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151114013217/http://www.enricorome.com/ to http://www.enricorome.com/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:15, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Concerning Vasari. In almost every place where Vasari is used as a source, he is NAMED as the source, not merely cited,  unless the fact is beyond question. 
If an "opinion" is given by Vasari, then he must be named in the text, not stated as "fact".  
This does not rule our Vasari as a source. It merely contains the way in which he is used.
:Vasari is occasionally named as a source, without ever producing any proper citation or delimitation of what is is his opinions and what is the mass of unsourced opinion and theological dilation accreted on this page. GPinkerton (talk) 21:54, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Vasari

message: This paragraph: 
:In spring 1508, Michelangelo returned to Rome to work on a cycle of frescoes on the vault and upper walls of the Sistine Chapel.[6][7] This work, also commissioned by Pope Julius II, "was equally daunting.....
This is the way you are planning on introducing your reader to the most important fact of the article-  that Pope Julius commissioned Michelangelo to paint the the greatest work of art in the world? 
:Really?  
:I am going to tell you straight that this is a hopelessly bad piece of writing.  Every important fact in this has been dumbed down. 
:"Michelangelo returned ... to work on (what?)  a cycle of frescoes. (A cycle of frescoes)......This work (what work?)   also commissioned....... 
:THis is the major statement. 
:You squeeze in two quotes to indicate it wss important...... and then a sentence that completes demaens the whole thing with its absolute banality-  about how Michelangelo tried to hire assistants, but none were available!! 
When you are writing a little scold to someone about how naughty they are for including some Personal Opinion, then you express yourself with competence and fluidity. 
May I suggest that if you cannot bring that skill to bear on this article, that you just content yourself with looking up a few page numbers to improve the references. 
:This would be far more useful than replacing well-written material in a GA article with a mishmash of sentences (all properly cited) strung together in a confusing manner that fails to elucidate that which is truly important. 
:With the exception of the OR on parade shields, and some opinion on interpretation, the basic facts of the article are all drawn from reliable sources, regardless of whether page numbers are given. In many case, what is written is a summary of several passages from a book, or a combination of material from several books. This is why paragraphs are referenced, rather than individual sentences. 
:The aim of the exercise is to write coherently, so that any student who reads it can understand with ease the series of events, and the significance of the art work. 
: Why you have decided to rewrite the first section of the body of text is a mystery to me. 
:Having identified the fact that some who has been studying Michelangelo since 1956, and who purchased Goldscheider for 37 shillings out of their pocket money, has actually introduced personal research that identifies the nature of the "Medallions" (previously almost totally ignored by every other writer), well, should you, or shouldn't you demolish the rest of a scholarly and well-written article, in the manner in which you are doing it?  
:Amandajm (talk) 14:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Further problems

message: :Older depictions of the creation scenes had depicted God as mostly immobile, a static, enthroned image whose activity was indicated by a gesture of the hand, as in the creation scenes of the mediaeval Byzantine-style mosaics of Monreale Cathedral.[73] Michelangelo, influenced by the Paradiso of Dante Alighieri, shows God in full-bodied movement, an innovation Giovanni di Paolo had made in his Creation and Expulsion from Paradise. Paolo Uccello also had shown some movement in his scene of the creation of Adam and Eve in the cloister of Santa Maria Novella.[74] In di Paolo's painting, as in Michelangelo's fresco, God is accompanied and apparently carried aloft by attendant putti.[74] Raphael employed movement somewhat more in his contemporary The Prime Mover, next door to the Sistine Chapel in the stanza della segnatura and painted 1509-'11; Perugino's slightly earlier Creator in fresco, in the room named for Raphael's Incendio del Borgo, shows a seated, static divinity.  
:This stuff is cited, and it does contain reference to Michelangelo and the ceiling. 
:But, it makes just ONE significant point-  That Michelangelo's depiction of God was more dynamic and than previous depictions. 
:The rest is irrelevant. 
:There is a speculation in this blurb  by the author that this is dependent upon Dante. Is this fact as it is stated?  Do we know this?
:There are now three pictures introduced into the article that all predate the artist, and none of which appear to have influenced him. 
:They are all there simply to address the point made by this writer that Michelangelo introduced a new energy to the figure of God. 
: Perugino and Raphael are also mentioned.  
: My scholarly opinion is that Raphael's dynamic portrayal of God may very well post-date his viewing of the Chapel ceiling. 
: We know that Bramante let him in.  We know that he went around to St Agostino and scraped his Prophet Isaiah of the wall and started again. 
:So the statement that his depiction of God in that manner was "contemporary" to Michelangelo's probably misses a very significant fact. -  Raphael was in every way a "Borrower".  He imitated Perugino, he imitated Leonardo, and once he got a chance to do so, he imitated Michelangelo.
:What I am telling you here is that pictures of Monreale Cathedral are not relevant an understanding of Michelangelo and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
: Giovanni di Paolo's little panel is irrelevant to Michelangel. 
: Uccello might be relevant, in so much as Michelanglo would have seen those pics.  
: The relevance of the Perugino is only by comparison.
:Raphael, as I say, was his imitator.
:If you want to make the point, simply compare him to Perugino, because it is nearby, and leave it at that. 
:You are writing about The Ceiling painting, not some thesis on the development of a trend in art, from the 13th century onwards 
:Amandajm (talk) 21:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Red herrings

message: Multiple images are almost always a terrible idea - single row galleries are much better, for a raft of reasons. A whole load havwe just been added, & I'm minded to revert them. What do others think? Johnbod (talk) 00:11, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Single row galleries much preferred. Amandajm (talk) 15:04, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple images 

message: John Ruskin compared Michelangelo's Brazen Serpent scene favourably to the canonical classical statue group Laocoön and His Sons, which Michelangelo saw on its discovery in 1506 together with Giuliano da Sangallo and his son.[61][62] Both works are crowded compositions of figures attacked by supernatural reptiles: the "fiery serpents" of the Book of Numbers and the sea-monsters of Virgil's Aeneid. But Ruskin preferred the sublimity expressed by Michelangelo's "gigantic intellect" in "the grandeur of the plague itself, in its multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation" and his "awfulness and quietness" to the "meagre lines and contemptible tortures of the Laocoön" and argued that "the grandeur of this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth".[61] Attacking the sculpture's unnaturalistic snakes as "pieces of tape with heads to them" and criticizing the unrealistic struggle, he contrasts:[61]
 ... the accuracy of Michael Angelo in the rendering of these circumstances; the binding of the arms to the body, and the knotting of the whole mass of agony together, until we hear the crashing of the bones beneath the grisly sliding of the engine folds. Note also the expression in all the figures of another circumstance, the torpor and cold numbness of the limbs induced by the serpent venom, which, though justifiably over-looked by the sculptor of the Laocoön, as well as by Virgil — in consideration of the rapidity of the death by crushing, adds infinitely to the power of the Florentine's conception.
    — John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. 3, ch. VII., 1856.' 
: This is waffle. 
: Tha fact that Michelangelo had seen the Laocoon and Sons sculpture is relevant to the manner in which he painted the Bazen Serpent. 
:The fact that a MId 19th Century connoisseur (of very particular and inflexible tastes)  preferred Michelangelo's painting to the Classical Sculpture is entirely irrelevant to any 21st Century reader, who is looking for sound information. 
:This stuff does not warrant two paragraphs.  
:And the fact that Vasari states that Michelangelo tried to get painters A,B,C,D,and E to work with him and they resfused, is also unnecessary padding.  
:If you are going to tell us that Michelangelo very generously asked the young Raphael to work with him then that would be worth knowing. 
:All the artists mentioned are relatively obscure, (but were undoubtedly known to the 16th century Florentine, Vasari). 
:What you are telling us is a negative fact.  None of these people worked on the ceiling.  So your 21st century reader doesn't need the names. 
:You seem to want to add every single mention of the ceiling, whether it is relevant or not, as long as you can find it in writing. 
:It is not having precise page numbers to the references that make an good encyclopedic article. It is having solid knowledge and understanding in the mind of the person/people who write the article, combined with the skill to write coherently. 
:As I have explained to you before, specific facts can have eually specific references. 
:But much information is drawn from a number of sources, and may summarise texts from a whole chapter, or be supported by the authors of several books, over many different pages. Writing of this sort takes study and comprehension. 
:Amandajm (talk) 13:18, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: More Red Herrings

message: Please forgive any 'citevar' trespasses from my edits; I'll refrain from reformatting anything here from now on. I only care about adding citations where they are lacking—not any specific formatting being used. So please disregard the bulk of my changes and for now I'll focus only on re-introducing non-controversial citations, with clear explanations of my reasoning. Other more complicated issues of the article can be returned to later on. Thanks both for catching my oversteps here, and your time moving forward. Best, UpdateNerd (talk) 08:35, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok thanks! Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of ~15 of my edits 

message: Not sure what is causing this article's title to display in Italics, but that seems inappropriate as the work has no title per se. UpdateNerd (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italic title