What is the name of the artist who painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to redecorate the chapel’s vault, and the artist worked on the project from 1508 until 1512. The result is a vast High Renaissance fresco cycle featuring nine central scenes from Genesis, including The Creation of Adam, surrounded by prophets, sibyls, ignudi, and the ancestors of Christ.

Michelangelo was already famous primarily as a sculptor and was simultaneously involved in the troubled design of Julius II’s tomb. He initially received a more limited proposal involving the Twelve Apostles, but the project expanded into the complex programme seen today. The artist’s command of anatomy, dramatic poses, and architectural illusion transformed the ceiling into one of the most influential works in Western art.

A frequent confusion comes from the chapel’s walls, where artists including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, and Pinturicchio painted fifteenth-century frescoes. Raphael later designed tapestries for the lower wall zone. Michelangelo also painted The Last Judgment on the altar wall decades afterward, from 1536 to 1541.