A GOOD Look at the Sistine Chapel

There is a wonderful website you should visit to experience the Sistine Chapel, here.

But perhaps before you look around the chapel you should read Dr. James Romaine's essay about the Ceiling in our book It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. In that chapter Romaine helps us understand the order of it all: "Michelangelo’s frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling represent the Genesis narrative of Creation, Fall, and Redemption as an epic history of divine action. The program is constructed of nine scenes divided into three groups of three. In order beginning from the altar, these are: The Separation of Light and Darkness, The Creation of Land and Vegetation and The Creation of the Sun and Moon, The Bringing Forth of Life from the Waters, The Creation of Adam, The Creation of Eve, The Temptation and Expulsion, The Faithfulness of Noah, The Flood, and The Drunkenness of Noah. The nine scenes that run the length of the chapel thematically group into three triads: God’s creation of the world before humanity, the creation and fall of humanity, and the life of Noah."