The End of the World

Signorelli's monumental fresco cycle of the End of the World at Orvieto Cathedral (c. 1500-1504) is considered his masterpiece and one of the greatest achievements of late 15th-century Italian art. The cycle profoundly influenced Michelangelo, who studied it before painting the Sistine Chapel Last Judgment. Luca Signorelli's treatments of the Last Judgment and the end of the world reach their definitive expression in the great frescoes at Orvieto Cathedral (1499-1504), which were among the most influential paintings in the Italian Renaissance. His command of the male nude in extreme action — the bodies of the damned writhing in torment, the blessed rising in glory — was so impressive that Michelangelo studied his work before painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. These easel paintings on apocalyptic subjects demonstrate the same interest in the dramatic potential of the human body that makes the Orvieto frescoes his masterpiece.

The muscular, dramatically foreshortened nude figures display Signorelli's extraordinary command of human anatomy. The dynamic, intertwined bodies create a vision of apocalyptic chaos rendered with sculptural precision and monumental scale.