michelangelo

all of Michelangelo's paintings are of nude people. in several stories, nudity is shown to be bad and represents a fall from grace. however michelangelo painted all of these scenes with nude people. this gives the viewer something else to focus on. when everyone is naked, the concept of shame through nudity disappears. for example, in the story of noah and his sons there is much emphasis placed on the father's nudity. in michelangelo's version of the story, the meaning changes from shame of nudity to shame of something else. it is perhaps simply noah's drunkenness that should be shameful. through a media other than text, michelangelo is able to portray a familiar idea or story in a different way and invoke a completely different response. it would be interesting to have the responses of other people that were around at this time to get there reaction. people back then were familiar with the stories from the bible but they would be experiencing these images for the first time without any bias. now if you mention michelangelo, people will automatically think of a masterful artist with amazing works of art. im sure there were many people from michelangelo's time that would not accept the images he was painting.