These figures, the
Ancestors of Christ, are more slightly painted than the rest of the vault.
They loom out of the darkness, caused by contrast to the light of the
windows they surround, grow in and out of the background and have an
atmospheric effect unequalled in fresco painting. Those who walk from the
Ponte Saint Angelo up the Borgo to the Vatican any morning early may see
at the back of the dim recesses of the arched cellar-like shops such
groups as these. The series may be regarded as the sketch-book of Michael
Angelo, in which he recorded his impressions of the life about him as he
trudged to his work.
The four triangular compositions that fill the corners of the chapel, the
four great Redemptions of Israel, are absolute masterpieces of space
arrangement, different methods of overcoming the same difficulty being
used in each picture, from the two principal figures and the tent in the
David and Goliath to the marvellous crowd of twisted limbs in the story of
the Brazen Serpent. In the composition of the Death of Holofernes Judith
covers with a napkin the severed head, which is carried in a basket on the
head of her handmaid; a most lovely group, said to have been taken from an
intaglio representing a vintage scene, in which a nymph fills with grapes
a basket supported on the head of a companion.
Under each of the Prophets and Sibyls, upon the side walls, is a
decorative putto supporting the name plate, standing at the springing of
the arches, as in Donatello's bas-relief representing Christ before
Pilate, in the pulpit of San Lorenzo.
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