God Will see it…

The Sistine Chapel ceiling painting took four years (1508-1512) to be completed by Michelangelo, one of the most influential painter and sculptor in the history of Western Art.? ?

Originally commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1505 to build his tomb that included forty statues, Michelangelo was never satisfied with the project. After many conflicts with the Pope’s idea, he decided to go back to Florence to finish some pending works he had there. Soon, the Catholic Church pressured the local government to get him back to Rome.

For this second approach, the artist managed to be soft with the Pope and look for an agreement on a very different endeavor. In the beginning it was only a painting of the Twelve Apostles on the cover of the central part of the chapel’s ceiling, but with time he persuaded Julius II on a bigger task that would include paintings of The Creation, Fall of Man and the Genealogy of Christ. The Pope accepted and gave him his entire support throughout the time of development of this amazing work. Influencers and Philosophers of that time considered the Pope to be a perfect partner to Michelangelo’s vision, and partially largely responsible for the artist to conclude his ambitious task (especially because of the big pressure from some top ecclesiastic Church members who didn’t like the amount of human nudity in the paintings). Unfortunately, a year later (1513) the Pope died without getting to fully appreciate the great masterpiece he helped construct.?

Historians collected many crucial dialogs between the Pope and Michelangelo during these long four years. Maybe one of the most remarkable finds was a conversation they had one night close to one of the big scaffold the artist used to paint the ceiling:?

Pope: Why do you put so much attention on the detail? No one is going to notice from the ground!

Michelangelo: God will see it!

Since then, his answer was and is still used by many people around the world to empathize how perfect their work always had to be, regardless of any complement or recognition.