A close and intimate _rapport_ with Nature can be perceived in all the work he designed and executed during the pontificates of Leo and Clement.

The artist was at his fullest both of mental energy and physical vigour.

What he wrought now bears witness to his plenitude of manhood.

Therefore, although the type fixed for the Sistine prevailed--I mean that generalisation of the human form in certain wilfully selected proportions, conceived to be ideally beautiful or necessary for the grand style in vast architectonic schemes of decoration--still it is used with an exquisite sensitiveness to the pose and structure of the natural body, a delicate tact in the definition of muscle and articulation, an acute feeling for the qualities of flesh and texture.

None of the creations of this period, moreover, are devoid of intense animating emotions and ideas.
Unluckily, during all the years which intervened between the Sistine vault and the Last Judgment, Michelangelo was employed upon architectural problems and engineering projects, which occupied his genius in regions far removed from that of figurative art.