No wonder it was so badly received at the time. The color palette is ugly; the bodies are ugly; the composition is ugly, everything is ugly. The whole scene makes me think of a third-rate gay bathhouse more than anything. It feels completely inappropriate.

I love his sculpture to death, and like the rest of the Sistine paintings too. But this has always escaped me. Do people like it out of contrarianism? Is it somehow much better in person?