When the newly restored Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were revealed to the public in 1992, there was a group of people in the art world that were horrified. This group felt that the restoration had taken something away that could never be returned and had effectively ruined everything Michelangelo had intended the frescoes to be. This group is dominated by two schools of thought. These different factions came together shortly after the restored frescoes were revealed and demanded to see all documentation from the huge civic project. What they found either provided more evidence to their claim or crushed their claim. The following is a brief overview of the two dominate schools of thought.
Dr. J. Feldman, a prominent art historian from New York, put forth a theory that rocked the art world. When the first phase of restoration was revealed, Dr. Feldman submitted a petition to temporarily stop the cleaning. Dr. Feldman had fourteen prominent U.S. artists sign the petition, including George Segal. Dr. Feldman argued that the restorers were destroying the frescoes by removing layers of chirarscuro applied by Michelangelo. His premise was based on detailed photos of before the restoration and after the restoration. Concentrating on one particular figure, Dr. Feldman compared the musculature and dimensionality of the figure in both photos and pointed out that there was dramatically less depth and musculature in the restored image than in the pre-restored image. Dr. Feldman also argued that the brightness of the frescoes that were revealed was not what Michelangelo had intended. Dr. Feldman used other works by Michelangelo as examples of his typical color palette and stated that Michelangleo's color palette leaned toward dark, somber colors. The group behind Dr. Feldman stated that the colors being revealed by restorers were not the ones Michelangelo had intended his final work to be in.
Another prominent U.S. art historian that objected to the restoration of the Sistine Chapel was Dr. Beck from Columbia University. Dr. Beck, like Dr. Feldman, felt that the restorers were removing something that Michelangelo had applied, though Dr. Beck did not go to the extreme of filing a petition for an injunction. Dr. Beck proposed that some of the glue varnish found on the ceiling frescoes was applied by Michelangelo himself to acheive a sculptural effect. Art historians on the Vatican team disagreed however and removed all layers of glue found on the ceiling. Another historian, Alexander Elliot, agreed with Dr. Beck and further proposed that the glue applied by Michelangelo was intended as a toning layer.