In Michelangelo's two frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling and the Last Judgment, an obvious change occurs in Michelangelo's style of painting. This change is exemplified primarily in the way Michelangelo portrays the male nude body. The changes in the presentation of humanism by Michelangelo in these two paintings were heavily influenced by the historical events that Michelangelo was living through at the time of the paintings. Due to the historical events of the early 16th century, the harmonious, heroic, male nudes used as frames on the Sistine ceiling transformed into explosive, burly, fragmented and almost monstrous nude men in the Last Judgment. .
Michelangelo's fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a biblical timeline that was commissioned to illustrate the political dominance that Rome possessed at the turn of the 16th century. The painting on the Sistine ceiling contains many male nudes which are central parts of the painting. In the scene that represents the creation of Adam, the male nude figure of Adam resembles that of Michelangelo's earlier sculpture, David. Michelangelo uses chiaroscuro to give Adam a three dimensional sculptural feel that David possesses. Also, both Adam on the Sistine ceiling as well as David are in relaxed positions with each of their respectable weights shifted to the left sides of their bodies which demonstrates Michelangelo's use of contrapposto in both pieces. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Adam conforms to the border of the scene allowing there to be a harmonious, open space surrounding him as well as the figure that represents God. This use of open space by Michelangelo aids in the narrative of the painting and the perceived notion of the time that man was at the center of the universe. .
In some of the margins of the fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo began experimenting with different styles of the male nude.