A replica of the Sistine Chapel has opened in Mexico City

For the last 18 years, a retired graphic designer has been quietly painting a replica of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel at his local church in Mexico City. Miguel Francisco Macias began his opus in an attempt to offer people who cannot travel a glimpse at one of the most shining examples of European art, Macias told Aljazeera . Miguel Francisco Macias shows the of copies of the original paintings by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. The project, which is now displayed on the ceiling at Perpetuo Socorro Church in Colonia Moctezuma, was largely self-funded with small donations from parishioners. Macias worked on the weekends with two assistants. The work was divided into 14 canvases each of which is 45-feet wide. Macias knew from the beginning that he would not be able to paint facing up, the way Michelangelo did, so he painted the canvases first and then affixed them to the ceiling afterwards. Elizabeth Ramirez, an assistant to Miguel Francisco Macias, works on a copy of the original paintings by Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel, in the church of “Nuestra Senora del Perpetuo Socorro” Macias said he was inspired to replicate Michelangelo’s frescoes not just because it is a stunning work of art, but because he realised the Sistine Chapel ceiling has almost the same dimensions as his local church, reported Splinter . The realisation came to Macias on a trip to Rome with a friend in 1999. The artist spent hours in the chapel admiring the frescos. “I stayed […]