
A deeply personal search for meaning in Michelangelo's frescoes--and an impassioned defence of the role of art in a fractured age. What do we hope to get out of seeing a famous piece of art? Jeannie Marshall asked that question of herself when she started...

A writer studies a famous work of art only to see herself and her own cultural moment revealed at its heart. Jeannie Marshall lived in Rome for ten years without visiting the Sistine Chapel: she didn't want to have a superficial experience of the frescos, but she wasn't sure...