The Restoration of Michelangelo's Frescoes - Thesis Example

The soot and grime from centuries of the burning of candles and incense have made the ceiling dark and the images hard to see.  Since the chapel has open windows, pollution has become a problem in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  The question of how to restore the ceiling became the question instead of when.  Still, there were opponents of the restoration project, like James Beck of ArtWatch.  The bumbling attempts of restoration since Michelangelo’s time were Beck’s argument.

  Some of this restoration had actually damaged the artwork.  An example would be the animal glue used to hold everything together but only contributed to the darkness of the frescoes.  As a result, science guided the restoration toward the end of the twentieth century.  Cleaning the frescoes with a safe solvent allowed vivid colors of the frescoes to emerge.  Many scholars had a problem with the colors, preferring the darkness normally associated with Michelangelo’s work.

  After the restoration, it is still unclear how much of the work is what was depicted in Michelangelo’s time.  Hopefully, the work can be better preserved in the centuries to come.