Was Matisse A Mormon?
May. 22nd, 2005 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloInteresting TV documentary last night in which Waldemar Januszczak got to demonstrate that Julius II, the warrior Pope who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine chapel ceiling, was a loonie who thought he was the Messiah.
Mchelangelo was his propagandist. Decode The Sistine Chapel and it's telling us a story about how Julius is really Jesus.
Waldemar didn't push the contemporary parallels, but in some ways it's reassuring to be reminded that George Bush isn't the first world leader to base his foreign policy on a skewed interpretation of the Bible.
And Michelangelo? Did he know what he was doing? Probably. Did he believe in what he was doing? Probably not. But what the hell- it was an excuse to paint lots of fit young men in the raw. Even so, it's a bit like discovering that Picasso did his best work while in receipt of generously filled brown envelopes from the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Mchelangelo was his propagandist. Decode The Sistine Chapel and it's telling us a story about how Julius is really Jesus.
Waldemar didn't push the contemporary parallels, but in some ways it's reassuring to be reminded that George Bush isn't the first world leader to base his foreign policy on a skewed interpretation of the Bible.
And Michelangelo? Did he know what he was doing? Probably. Did he believe in what he was doing? Probably not. But what the hell- it was an excuse to paint lots of fit young men in the raw. Even so, it's a bit like discovering that Picasso did his best work while in receipt of generously filled brown envelopes from the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Date: 2005-05-23 12:09 pm (UTC)