Readers Reply

Do You Really Like the Cleaned Sistine Chapel Pictures?

Thank you for your crucial contribution to the controversy over cleaning the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: To Clean or Not to Clean,” BR 04:04, by Jane and John Dillenberger, is the first evenhanded report on this I’ve seen. Although they disagree with me, the Dillenbergers do outline my position. More importantly, your full-page “before & after” reproductions of the Prophet Joel are worth a thousand words.

I’m sure your readers have saved the August issue, so let them look again at the uncleaned Joel. His tousled silver locks and bony brow are subtly bathed in light which seems to fall from the empyrian. Joel frowns in a supreme effort of concentrated thought; his eyes also show it. His whole head has the heavy thrust of a ship’s prow. The part-tense, part-sagging flesh of his eloquent throat and old shoulders carry conviction; so do his shadowy and yet, luminous clothes. This Joel is neither “filthy” nor “clumsily restored” (to quote the cleaners’ apologias). True, the centuries have gently cracked and silver-dusted Michelangelo’s depiction. Still, what we see is a totally real Prophet Joel whose terrific physical presence appears filled to the fingertips with the Spirit of the Lord.