What the Sistine Chapel Teaches Us about Legacy

On a fall evening in mid-November, I sat on an acrylic-covered bench on the perimeter of the Sistine Chapel alone except for a few classmates. We spent half an hour in silence, gazing up at Michelangelo’s fresco masterpieces, marveling at the figures suspended from the ceiling. Feelings of awe overwhelmed me. Tears formed in my eyes as I grappled with the triumph of human achievement and the sobering reminder of the brevity of human lives evoked by Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. It was a privilege most people will never get to experience. 

I came through the Vatican Museum, the Papal Apartments, and the Sistine Chapel earlier in the day. My first reaction to the Sistine Chapel was not wonder, but claustrophobia. “It is smaller than I thought,” I remember noting. Masses of visitors collected in the sanctuary, failing to observe the mandated silence. I did not know where to look. I even missed the iconic Creation of Adam above my head.

Returning that night, the Pope’s private chapel felt intimate, authoritative, and sacred. With hardly any people in the space, the walls began to speak, chattering about all the moments of history they have witnessed in the last five centuries: papal conclaves, diplomatic visits, the Pope’s private prayers. Unlike before, the figures of God, Adam, Eve, Sibyls, Prophets, and youths on the ceiling outnumbered us, reminding me of my own mortality and leading me to ponder their heaven-like existence that defied time. 

Studying the Sistine Chapel from images fails to encapsulate the frescoes’ magnitude, strength, and delicacy. I was ignorant of their magnificence before visiting. After studying one cycle of frescoes after another, they blended together in my mind. Sitting in the Sistine Chapel that evening, I humbly resigned myself to a silent, all-consuming appreciation at not only the enormity of the project, but Michelangelo’s creativity and mastery of design. He created new planes of space that seemed natural to the ceiling’s architecture. The layering of the Creation Scenes vaulted their importance and protected their sanctity. 

During my time in the Chapel, I considered what it meant to leave behind a legacy. Over the frescoes’ five hundred year existence since Michelangelo began to work the frescoes for Pope Julius II in 1508, the Chapel has welcomed millions of visitors who traveled many miles to see with their own eyes one of the most sacred places in the world and Michelangelo’s masterpiece. I struggled to think of any place built today that would attract the same response. I thought of the billionaires today and how they might be remembered. I wondered what they spent their money on. How were they investing in the creation of monuments of culture representative of our time? 

Then, I thought about the donor who made our class visit to the Sistine Chapel possible. She donated her money so that my classmates and I could have this experience. Were we her legacy? 

One of the cornerstones of art history is legacy—the legacy of an artist, a patron, an institution, a culture.  How do you create something so revered, respected, and inspirational that it transcends time? A legacy is not something built haphazardly. It is intentional and strategic. The pursuit of legendary singularity often only comes to be respected or known posthumously. As an art historian, I find myself thinking about the artists who so desperately sought to be remembered, as if that is a measurement of the quality of their creations.

We see trends in art styles and artists (Frida Khalo is having a moment right now) come and go, yet some artworks never seems to go out of fashion. The Sistine Chapel consistently attracts visitors and scholars continue to spill ink over it. Is its status as a legendary monument man-made and contrived?

I come back to the question “What are we making today that will have this kind of legacy?” quite often. Anyone who works in the Arts and Humanities today will lament the field’s funding crisis. Thanks in particular to cuts from the federal government, universities are “sunsetting” humanities majors and slashing graduate program funding. To be a patron of the arts today requires a desire for your return on investment to be a collective cultural enrichment and the legacy of your people rather than a pecuniary one.

My key takeaway from the Sistine Chapel was that the arts and humanities are still pertinent building blocks of eternal legacies. No one questions the value of art while standing in the Sistine Chapel.