The Last Judgment

Bartholomew was martyred by being skinned alive. He carries his skin as an attribute. Michelangelo painted the face on the empty skin as his own — beard, balding scalp, broken nose. He was sixty-six and exhausted, in conflict with the Vatican over the figures' nudity. The most dramatic confession in Western art is sitting at the centre of the painting and almost everybody walks past it. Now at the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City @vaticanmuseums