Sunday, April 13, 2008

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Artist

Commentary, Humor

By Richard E. Noble

I was raised a good sex-fearing Roman Catholic by Nuns who had the decency to tape their breasts flat to their chests, wear ankle high paratrooper boots, and at least four heavy woolen, toe length dresses, even in the summer time.
The first time that I looked at a reproduction of what Michelangelo had done to the Sistine Chapel at the Pope's house in Rome, I was aghast. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was almost as shocking to me as the first time that I ever saw a condom! This guy had covered the whole thing with naked titties and little peckers. I mean titties and peckers everywhere! I was speechless. And some Pope had paid him to do this. I decided to investigate this whole thing.
Back somewhere in the late fourteen or early fifteen hundreds Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo, who had his nose broke by a guy named Torrigiano (This fact is mentioned in every account that I have yet read. So, I thought I'd tell you all about it, too.) to paint the Sistine Chapel. "Commissioned", in Pope talk means ... do it, or become an eunuch. Michelangelo was kind of a cry baby and the first thing that he starts whining about is the fact that he doesn't know how to paint. He tells the Pope that he is not a painter but a sculptor, and that he has never painted anything in his life and how about a nice tomb or a statue or something like that. The Pope gets "upset." This Pope was always getting upset. At one point Mikie had to drop his chisel and pallet and run for the hills. But the Pope finally gets over it, comes forward with some cash and re-commissions Mikie.
Well Mikie agrees to do the job as long as he gets cash up front and he isn't disturbed. The Pope agrees. So Mikie locks himself in the Chapel for a couple of years and allows nobody to see what he is doing, other than one paint bearer who agrees to work for minimum wage, and keep his mouth shut.
So Michelangelo, covers all of the walls within the Sistine Chapel with tiny little peckers and titties. Peckers and titties everywhere, man. You have got to see this thing! The Pope comes in, finally, looks at all the peckers and titties everywhere, and says ... "Hummm, I better get some of the Junior Popes to look at this." A contingent of junior Popes look at this graffiti and a few decades or a century or so later they decide to hire another guy to paint little veils and fig leaves over all of the tiny peckers and titties, (and about time, I might add!). And today the Sistine Chapel has been restored, AND WITHOUT THE VEILS AND LITTLE FIG LEAVES, ONCE AGAIN!!
I am totally fed up with all of this. Every time I think of Sister Agnes kneeling in that Chapel with her breasts dutifully taped flat to her chest, sweating her little butt off, trying to say the rosary, surrounded by a plethora of tiny little peckers, even little cherubs with naked little peckers poking out everywhere, staring her in the face, I AM OUTRAGED!! I SAY, ERASE THE SISTINE CHAPEL ... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!