“The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo Buonarroti Essay

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Introduction

“The Creation of Adam” is part of the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel which can be considered one of the major symbols of all Western European art. Savastano et al. explain that “Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have been construed to represent the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Seven Days of Creation in the Book of Genesis and the Last Judgement” (1). Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and the outstanding master of the Renaissance, painted the entire Sistine Chapel in a little over two years – in between 1508 and 1512. In Michelangelo’s art, both the deeply human ideals of the High Renaissance and the tragic sense of the crisis of the humanistic worldview, characteristic of the late Renaissance era, were embodied with great passion.

Discussion

When Michelangelo received an order from Pope Julius II for a fresco for the Sistine Chapel, its design was no different from the arches of most churches of that time. It was simply strewn with brilliant specks of stars on a blue background. Julius II proposed to paint the figures of the twelve apostles between the arches, and to cover the ceiling itself with a “suitable ornament.” Michelangelo, however, decided to do create a much more elaborate and sophisticated design for the chapel.

Michelangelo painted God in the ancient spirit: He is real in his bodily and divine incarnation. Dressed in a simple pink tunic, God flies over the created world, surrounded by wingless angels. The female figure to his right is Eve – she is still waiting for the hour of her creation, but is already conceived by God. During the flight, God turns, rushes towards Adam and holds out his hand to him. This movement towards God’s creation embodies the energy of life, which the Creator intends to transfer to man (The Sistine Chapel, para. 7). The figure of the Creator is mirrored in the pose of the lying Adam, captured in his image and likeness. However, at the same time, Adam’s pose also repeats the outlines of the rock: he is still only part of the landscape around. There is literally not enough spark of vitality to breathe soul into it.

God the Creator is painted in profile, with flowing gray hair and a beard. The forward gaze of the Creator is reinforced by multiple echoes, which are created by angelic gazes pointed in the same direction. The hand of God is depicted naked, as this is how God the Creator appeared in European painting for the first time. Such an interpretation is motivated by the biblical question “To whom is the hand of the Lord open?”. These words, in turn, refer to Christ, whose ancestor was Adam – the man who knew no sin.

Conclusion

Michelangelo places the gesture of hands almost meeting at the very center of the fresco, embodying with it a pause to enhance the impact of the images. It can be practically seen how the energy through the hand of God is transferred to the hand of man. Choosing this very moment – the birth of the soul – from the history of the creation of man, Michelangelo equates it to creative insight. In his opinion, the ability to create is the most valuable gift of those given to man by the higher power. Between two hands outstretched to each other, a miracle is performed, inaccessible to human vision.

This gesture was already captured by Leonardo da Vinci; but if the angel in his painting “Madonna in the Grotto” only pointed to a miracle, then here the gesture of God embodies it. Subsequently, this image of meeting hands will be repeated by many other artists – agreeing or arguing with Michelangelo’s faith in man and in the power of creativity.

Works Cited

Savastano, Luis E., et al. “The ‘Michelangelo Code’: The Quest for Universal Truth.” The Neuroscientist, 2022. Web.

The Sistine Chapel. “Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel.” The Sistine Chapel, 2022. Web.

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