Sayonara, Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Restored and Repackaged

Nippon TV, a Japanese channel best known for its quiz shows and baseball coverage, underwrote the cleaning and restoration of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes in return for exclusive media rights to the restored ceiling. The ``bright, light, colorful, and uplifting Renaissance spectacle'' emerging from the ongoing restoration has helped replace the myth of a ``grim, black, troubled'' Michelangelo as agonized godlike sufferer, with the impression of a down-to-earth artist, clear-eyed and rational. This delightfully irreverent, psychologically astute on-the-scene report gives us a Michelangelo who took shortcuts, repeated himself and eradicated his mistakes, a snob who tried to cover up his origins, tolerated no competitors and was obsessed with money. Arts editor for a British TV network, Januszczak throws a sharp light on art world politics, Renaissance studies and the Japanese yen for Western culture. The book, however, would have benefited from illustrations. (Oct.)