Elizabeth Lev: The unheard story of the Sistine Chapel
الیزابت لو: داستان ناشنیده از کلیسای سیستین
Elizabeth Lev's experience studying and teaching art has led her to believe that when we encounter something beautiful, we are made vulnerable and opened to the truth. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
to the Vatican Museums.
down long corridors,
lots and lots of stuff.
a stair and a door.
of the Sistine Chapel.
what do we have?
by painted curtains,
to keep out cold during long masses,
the great theater of life.
plays a part is a great story,
نقشی در این داستانی شگرف دارد،
in the three stages
as a space for a small group
They elected their pope there.
ecclesiastical man cave.
that today it attracts and delights
there was a creative explosion,
of new geopolitical frontiers,
missionary tradition of the Church
works of art in history.
as a great evolution,
to audiences of people
to a historical circumstance.
parochial perspective.
worldviews were dramatically altered
جهان بینیها رخ داد،
was well under way
reflected a smaller world.
of Jesus and Moses,
of the Jewish and Christian people.
Pope Sixtus IV,
پاپ سکتوس چهارم،
فلورانس را گرد آورد،
Michelangelo's future painting teacher,
میکل آنژ میشود،
with a frieze of pure color,
familiar landscapes,
or a Tuscan landscape
something much more familiar.
of the Pope's friends and family,
for a small court
microcosm had to expand as well.
was Michelangelo Buonarroti,
to decorate 12,000 square feet of ceiling,
مترمربعی را آغاز کرد.
but had left to pursue sculpture.
because he had left a stack
of a great sculptural project,
to paint 12 apostles
in the Sistine Chapel ceiling,
every other ceiling in Italy.
to sail across the Atlantic Ocean,
new artistic waters.
of great beginnings,
stories on a ceiling.
a busy scene from 62 feet below?
در ۱۸ متر پایینتر خواند؟
handed on for 200 years
for this kind of a narrative.
to filling space with busyness,
and hacked away at a piece of marble
in massive, dynamic bodies.
by the larger-than-life Pope Julius II,
of Michelangelo's brazen genius.
for 30 years and he knew its power.
of the Warrior Pope,
it wasn't fortresses and artillery,
the Sistine Chapel.
of Greco-Roman sculptures --
that would become the seedbed
the Vatican Museums.
that would be eternally relevant
Michelangelo and Julius II,
to this project,
in three and a half years,
most of the time, hours on end,
to paint the stories on the ceiling.
to the world around you.
and structure and energy;
which opens onto nine panels,
than painterly color.
by the entrance,
enclosure intended for the clergy
looking for a beginning.
or in biblical tradition,
و چه در پی سنن انجیل
of light and dark,
from one side to the next.
the sun, the moon, vegetation.
on the stuff that was being created,
like a caesura in poetry
the universe and his treasures,
of creation, which is man.
against a dark background.
by the creator in that finger,
from the hand of Adam.
from that contact,
will discover his purpose,
at the pinnacle of creation.
She's part of the plan.
that her hand curls around his arm.
from the 21st century,
that the painting spoke to me.
representation of the human drama
the heart of the ceiling,
together in the Garden of Eden,
turns into folded shame.
now in the ceiling.
where you and I can go
out of the inner sanctum,
much like Adam and Eve.
of the world around us.
and a covenant with God.
who grew grapes, invented wine,
naked in his barn.
blind drunk in a barn.
is making fun of us.
right underneath Noah:
on the prophet Zechariah.
coming from the east,
to a new destination,
who will lead us on a parade.
who make safe the way,
human engine, driving it forward.
of the ceiling,
he's about to fall out of his space
three days in the belly of the whale,
در شکم نهنگ گذراند،
of the renewal of humanity
of visitors to that museum
encounters and meets immediate reality.
archway of the altar wall,
had changed again.
بعد از آنکه جهان باز تغییر کرد
Islam a household word
را به یک خانواده جهانی بدل کرد
into the Pacific Ocean.
been any further than Venice
of the Last Judgment,
را برای شما باقی میگذارد
strikingly beautiful bodies.
غایت زیبا را میپوشاند.
no more portraits
breaking away from the ground,
و از کف کلیسا دور میشوند،
reach back to help others,
برای کمک به دیگران دست دراز میکنند،
pulled up together
goes to the winner's circle.
completely nude like athletes.
قهرمانان کاملا برهنهاند.
who have overcome adversity,
مشقتها چیره شدهاند،
of people who combat adversity,
به مبارزه مصیبتها میپردازند.
flexing and posing
proved in his painting,
در این نقاشی نشان میدهد،
they forge it.
بلکه آن را فراموش میکنند.
عجیب و غریب نمیکشاند
is indeed a stew of nudes.
مجموعه ای از برهنهها است.
only the best artistic language,
بهترین زبان هنری بهره بجوید،
he could think of:
که او میتوانست بدان بیندیشد:
virtue such as fortitude or self-mastery,
فضیلتهای تقوا
wonderful collection of sculptures
ژولیوس دوم وام گرفت
as external power.
قدرت برون نشان دهد.
to not cause controversy.
که مناقشه ایجاد نکند.
that thanks to the printing press,
میکل آنژ افتاد،
spread all over the place,
با برهنگی همه جا را گرفت،
was labeled pornography,
مستهجن و شهوتانگیز گرفت،
two more portraits,
a papal courtier,
as a dried up husk, no athlete,
نه مانند یک قهرمان،
several of these figures covered over,
چندین مورد از این اشکال را دید،
over his great exhortation to glory.
جزیی در راه شکوهمندی او.
of the human experience.
to look around as if it were a mirror.
که به اطراف بنگریم گویی که آینهای آنجاست.
of uplifting beauty,
برجسته را ترک میکنیم،
life's biggest questions:
سوالات زندگی را از خود بپرسیم:
in this great theater of life?
تئاتر بزرگ زندگی دارم؟
this whole issue of pornography,
مستهجن و شهوت انگیز بودن صحبت کردی،
daily life scenes and improper things
تصاویری از زندگی روزمره و نامناسب
and covering up some of the figures.
برخی از شکلها نیست.
destroyed because of that.
به این دلیل معدوم شد.
of the Last Judgment was enormous.
that everybody saw it.
را فراهم آورد که همه آن را ببینند.
that happened within a couple of weeks.
over the space of 20 years
how to live our lives.
pornography in the Pope's chapel?"
that Michelangelo died
found a compromise,
these extra 30 covers,
the origin of fig-leafing.
that was trying to save a work of art,
اثری هنری را نجات دهد،
is not the classic tour
صرفا سفری کلاسیک
when they go to the Sistine Chapel.
کلیسای سیستین در مییابند.
it is a statement.
is encountering problems.
going through that tiny door
از آن در کوچک وارد میشوند
in a completely different way
nice to be able to pause and look.
که مکثی کرده و نگاهی بیاندازیم.
even when you're in those days,
که اگر شما در آن روزها همراه
with all those other people,
با تمام آن مردم در داخل بودید
how amazing it is
که چقدر عظمت دارد
from 500 years ago
standing side by side with you,
truly can speak to us all
چگونه میتواند با ما سخن بگوید
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Elizabeth Lev - Art historianElizabeth Lev's experience studying and teaching art has led her to believe that when we encounter something beautiful, we are made vulnerable and opened to the truth.
Why you should listen
Art historian Elizabeth Lev became captivated by Rome while completing her graduate studies. She writes and lectures on Renaissance art in the Eternal City, but is most at home in the Vatican Museums, founded in the 16th century to house the trove of art amassed by centuries of Popes. She has spent 15 years studying the vast collection, which contain not only Christian-themed works but art from virtually every other culture in the world. She consults with the Vatican Museums and wrote the film Vatican Treasures. She also wrote A Body for Glory, examining how the papal collection of Greco-Roman nudes grew into the Sistine Chapel.
Elizabeth Lev | Speaker | TED.com