The Last Judgment (Sistine Chapel), Michelangelo Buonarroti, c. 1541
An excerpt from the book Images of the Unseen
At the conclusion of human history the Lord Jesus Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. His parable of the sheep and the goats gives us a sobering preview of the events of that day, in which He will separate the saved from the damned according to what they did or failed to do in life (cf. Matt. 25:31 ff.). All the mysteries of human existence, all man’s unanswered questions, will be definitively answered on that day.
While many works of art depict the scene of the Last Judgment, none can compare in magnitude to Michelangelo’s immense mural on the Sistine Chapel’s altar wall, which he returned to decorate a quarter-century after his work on the ceiling was done. It is a picture of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, hell. The three-tiered cosmic structure of heaven, earth, and hell are universal to human culture. In Michelangelo’s work the realms overlap with the citizens of the higher and lower invading the earthly plane to battle for souls, showing man’s intrinsic worth. The kingdom of heaven, moreover, dominates the scene, descending to transform the earth and vanquish the forces of hell.
Christ stands at the center as the Lord of all Creation. Herculean, like a figure of living marble, His physicality signifies His omnipotence and gives a concreteness to the event. With the raising of His right arm the Just Judge ushers the elect on to paradise; lowering His left He condemns the unrepentant to eternal torment. Beside Him is the Blessed Mother, positioned lower on the picture plane to show her subordination to Him, yet enclosed within the immediate sphere of His presence to show her union with Him. Her arms folded in a gesture of intercessory prayer, she gazes with pity upon those engaged in final spiritual combat. Verses from her Magnificat may be applied here to describe the scene of the Last Day:
For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree (Luke 1:49-52).
Surrounding Christ we see the saints holding the emblems of their sainthood: Peter with the keys, Catherine of Alexandria a spiked wheel, Sebastian arrows, Bartholomew his flayed skin. In the flayed skin scholars have found Michelangelo’s self-portrait, a moving statement of his humility.