Michelangelo used custom multi-tip brushes to mimic sculpture techniques

Conservators at the Vatican Museums discovered that Michelangelo designed and built custom multi-tip brushes to paint the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

During a restoration project conducted between February and March 2026, the team removed a layer of calcium carbonate buildup caused by the sweat of millions of visitors. This cleaning process revealed the artist's unique method of creating parallel lines to achieve a specific texture.

Paolo Violini, the head of the Painting Conservation Laboratory, identified a systematic technique of intersecting parallel lines across the fresco. The conservators noticed that these lines often featured identical wavy deviations, suggesting that Michelangelo used brushes with multiple heads, each ending in a small tuft of hair. Some of these specialized tools featured three tips, while others reached a width of 15 cm and held up to ten small brushes.

The discovery suggests that Michelangelo aimed to replicate the visual effects he achieved as a sculptor. In stone carving, he used a toothed chisel to leave parallel grooves that allowed light to scatter across the surface, making the marble appear lifelike. By using these custom brushes to create similar textures in paint, he was able to produce a play of light and shadow that gave his figures a sense of volume and plasticity.