Wednesday, January 11, 2012

bien sans sa peau

So I followed the Instapundit link to the Vatican's new 3-D virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel, which is pretty darn incredible, and found myself zooming in on this image:



What the hell is that all about? Is there a biblical reference that I'm missing, here?


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8 comments:

Lorianne said...

That's Saint Bartholomew, who was martyred by being skinned alive. He's pictured holding his own flayed skin along with the knife that was used to kill him.

FFM Dave said...

According to legend, face on the skin of St. Bart is that of Michelangelo. Perhaps a comment on the task.

Elisson said...

What Lorianne said. But one more fillip: the flayed skin also is a sort of distorted self-portrait of Michelangelo.

The Maximum Leader said...

Darn! Beat to the punch.

Charles said...

I thought it was a reference to the film Men in Black, where the alien kills Edgar and wears his skin.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Since Saint Bartholomew still has his own skin (and whom does he resemble, I wonder) and bears the knife, and since the skin is apparently that of Michelangelo, then is Michelangelo depicting himself as a flayed 'martyr'? But for what? Art? Or?

Jeffery Hodges

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Kevin Kim said...

As far as I can tell, the skinning isn't biblical, so you need to know your Lives of the Saints. Guess I should get reading.

In the meantime... did no one get the French pun in the title? Not a word of commentary on that. I'm so déçu.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I caught the pun, Kevin, but I figured everybody did if I did, so I said nothing.

Good pun, anyway.

Jeffery Hodges

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