St. Bartholomew with his Flayed Skin

Hidden on the suffocating, massive wall of The Last Judgment in the Vatican is the most chilling, yet deeply melancholic, dark Easter egg of the entire Renaissance. In the core area of the painting, a saint named Bartholomew sits on a cloud. According to Christian legend, Bartholomew was martyred by being flayed alive. Therefore, in the painting, he holds a completely flayed human skin in his left hand, and tightly grips the flaying knife used for his torture in his right.

This isn’t merely a bloody display of martyrdom. If you activate your “Microscope” perspective and zoom in on the face of that shriveled, hollow skin hanging like a torn rag—that is not Bartholomew’s face at all. This twisted and agonizing visage is an actual self-portrait of the artist, Michelangelo himself! This is arguably the most intimidating selfie in the history of world art. While other artists usually painted themselves as elegant bystanders or noble knights, Michelangelo depicted himself as a tragic shell, completely drained of flesh and blood, leaving nothing but an empty hide.

Why did he represent himself in such a horrifying and macabre manner? This stemmed from Michelangelo’s extreme spiritual crisis and physical torment in his later years. After working for decades for greedy and dictatorial popes, he felt his soul and vitality had been entirely “flayed” and exploited by these colossal projects. Simultaneously, finding himself squarely in the eye of the Reformation’s storm, the genius experienced profound doubts about his own faith and his very chances of salvation. This skin is not just a silent indictment of secular power, but a shocking “letter of resignation of the soul” submitted directly to God.

There is also a highly secretive, sarcastic piece of gossip regarding the placement of this skin: its position on the fresco dangles exactly over the head of a demon considered an “envoy of Hell” below. Some scholars have identified the demon’s prototype as the writer Pietro Aretino—Michelangelo’s arch-nemesis, who frantically attacked him for painting a bunch of “heretical nudes.” Michelangelo not only painted himself as a brutally peeled skin but also made sure to use this very hide to violently “slap” his rival in the face. In this five-year-long fresco campaign, Michelangelo used the most cruel form of self-destruction to execute the most magnificent revenge in art history.