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But in the end, the proof is in the eye. Michelangelo did not design for electric light. It is the uncleaned two-thirds of the ceiling that needs spotlights to render its mighty forms visible through all the murk. The cleaned areas can be seen clearly by natural daylight, as Michelangelo meant them to be, from the floor 68 feet below. The forms have lost none of their "sculptural" definition, their nobly volumetric quality; instead, they have gained in modulation through the cleaning. Some doubts remain -- about the efficacy, for example, of the Vatican's plans for crowd and atmospheric control: as many as 18,000 people flood through the Sistine each day as it is, and with the publicity about the "new Michelangelo," this depressing figure (who sees what, under such circumstances?) can only swell bringing more pollutants with it.
Despite these and other worries, the principle of the cleaning and the care with which it is being done deserve support. You cannot preserve the monochrome Sistine that misled generations of visitors to Rome, including some of the best painters and art historians in the past 200 years, and still respect Michelangelo's intentions.