He was modest about doing the painting and protested he was a sculptor and not a painter but soon he realized that instead of just representing single figures in the painting he could introduce dramatic scenes which were so successful that it set a standard for the future (Biography). .
The Sistine Chapel was built between 1475 and 1483 in the time of Pope Sixtus IV. Rectangular in shape and measures of 40.93 meters long by 13.41 meters wide was the exact same dimensions of the Temple of Soloman in Jerusalem. It is 20.70 meters high and is roofed by a flattened barrel vault with little side vaults over the centered windows. The intricate process of the painting was arranged in a framing system that was one of Michelangelo's first architectonic designs. The ceiling was approached as a surface on which he attached planes built up in different degrees of projections, just like a sculpture only its units were blocks instead of impressionable forms (Michelangelo). Despite its murkiness, the chapel ceiling is clearly a work of Renaissance Humanism. It is a combination of classical and Christian ideas, recognizing in humanity the tension between a divine spirit and sinful flesh .When looking at the panels of the ceiling from the Creation to the story of Noah, they tell how divine beauty and order of creation were corrupted by human weakness (Bishop 219). The main elements of the painting are twelve male and female prophets and the nice stories of Genesis. He began painting from the end of the story and worked to the beginning (Michelangelo). .
According to the article, "Painting by Numbers" by Ross King, as many as a dozen men took part in the Sistine chapel ceiling painting, but the contributions to the enormous fresco, an intimidating difficult and laborious technique, were eclipsed by the towering reputation of Michelangelo. Fresco-painting was a technique that called for man hours of preparations in the studio and on the scaffold before the paintbrush even touched the ceiling.