It might not have quite the same wow factor as gazing heavenwards at the Michaelangelo masterpiece for real.

However, art lovers are being given the chance to take in one of the world’s greatest cultural achievements, 1,223 miles from Rome’s Vatican City...in the unlikely surrounds of a Glasgow shopping centre.

LA-based exhibition production company Special Entertainment  Events, Inc. (SEE) is bringing the awe-inspiring frescoes of the Sistine Chapel to Glasgow after stopping off in New York, Madrid and London.

The exhibition features photographic representations of Michelangelo’s works displayed in their original size in 34 16-foot panels, giving the viewer a new eye-level experience.

The Herald:

A special photo-printing technique has been used to emulate the look and feel of the original paintings,  allowing spectators to admire - or at least imagine - every brush stroke and colour.

The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment, have been recreated in their original size and stand at a towering 41 feet high.

READ MORE: Review: Vin Gogh Alive Ediburgh. Is all the fuss justified?

Construction work is underway to bring the travelling exhibit to Braehead Shopping Centre for its June 21 opening.

Michaelangelo’s Cappella Sistina frescoes depicting scenes from the Old Testament were commissioned by Pope Julius II and painted between 1508 and 1512.

The Herald:


The Last Judgment fresco on the west wall was painted for Pope Paul III in the period from 1534, when the artist was 30, to 1541.

They are considered among the greatest achievements of Western painting.

Michelangelo is said to have been initially reluctant to take on the commission because he considered himself a sculptor and not a painter.

READ MORE: Views sought on new home for nation's artworks

At one point he quarrelled with the Pope and soon after he secretly left Rome for Florence.

The Herald:

He returned after the Florentine government asked him to return to the Pope.

A 10-year-long cleaning and restoration of the Sistine ceiling completed in 1989 removed several centuries’ accumulation of dirt, smoke, and varnish. Cleaning and restoration of the Last Judgment was completed in 1994.

The new exhibition comes as another, which recreates the paintings of Dutch artist Vincent Vin Gogh, enters its final month at Edinburgh’s Festival Square.

Vin Gogh Alive is said to be the world’s most visited “multi-sensory experience” but has divided critics with one describing the show’s attitude to the paintings as deadening and conspicuously commercial.

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition is running until August 21.