The Creation of Adam, also known as The Creation of Man is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.
Painted c. 1508–1512, the painting illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives life to Adam, the first man.
Michelangelo wasn’t originally commissioned to paint the ceiling, instead in 1505 he started Pope Julius II’s tomb, which was to include forty statues and be complete in five years.
Bramante, who was working on the building of St Peter’s Basilica, resented Michelangelo’s commission for the Pope’s tomb, so convinced the Pope to commission him in a medium with which he was unfamiliar, in order that he might fail at the task. History would judge that to be a mistake of biblical proportion.
Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint the Twelve Apostles on the triangular pendentives that supported the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and cover the central part of the ceiling with ornament. However, Michelangelo persuaded Pope Julius to give him a free hand and proposed a different and more complex scheme, representing the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Promise of Salvation through the prophets, and the genealogy of Christ.
The composition stretches over 14 metres wide by 39 metres long (more than 500 square metres) of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and contains over 300 figures.
At its centre are nine episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into three groups: God’s creation of the world; God’s creation of humankind and their fall from God’s grace; and lastly, the state of humanity and sin as represented by Noah and his family.
On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, seven prophets of Israel (Joël, Ezekiel, Jonah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Isaiah) and five Sibyls (Erythraean, Delphic, Libyan, Cumaean, and Persian).
God’s creation of humankind includes ‘The Creation of Adam’, ‘Creation of Eve’ and the ‘Original sin and the banishment from the Garden of Eden’.
God is depicted as an elderly, white-bearded man, wrapped in a swirling cloak while Adam, on the lower left, is completely naked.
God’s right arm is outstretched to impart the spark of life from his own finger into that of Adam, whose left arm is extended in a pose mirroring God’s, a reminder that God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26).
The inspiration for Michelangelo’s rendition of the scene may come from a medieval hymn, “Veni Creator Spiritus”, which asks the ‘finger of the paternal right hand’ (digitus paternae dexterae) to give the faithful speech.
The two index fingers, however, are separated by a small 1.9 cm gap, with some scholars thinking that it represents the unattainability of divine perfection by man.
An interpretation, first proposed by the English art critic Walter Pater (1839–1894) which is widely accepted, the person protected by God’s left arm represents Eve, due to the figure’s feminine appearance and gaze towards Adam, and the eleven other figures symbolically represent the souls of Adam and Eve’s unborn progeny, the entire human race.
However, the Catholic Church regards the teaching of the pre-existence of souls as heretical. Consequently, the figure behind God has been suggested to be the Virgin Mary, Sophia (the personification of wisdom mentioned in the Book of Wisdom), the personified human soul, or “an angel of masculine build”.
It has also been speculated that the red cloth around God has the shape of a human uterus and that the scarf hanging out, coloured green, could be a newly cut umbilical cord. An interesting hypothesis that presents the Creation scene as an idealised representation of the physical birth of man (“The Creation”).
It explains the navel that appears on Adam, which is at first perplexing because he was created, not born of a woman.
Additionally, it has been noted that the left side of Adam’s torso contains an extra concealed rib. Due to Michelangelo’s in-depth knowledge of human anatomy, one can speculate that this rib outline is intentional, and represents the rib of Eve.
Further one could suggest that this extra rib inclusion was a way for Michelangelo to represent Adam and Eve being created side by side, which differs from the Catholic tradition that states Eve was created after Adam.
There is significant evidence that Michelangelo radically disagreed with many Catholic traditions and had a bumpy relationship with the commissioner of the ceiling, Pope Julius II.
Thus, the rib inclusion could have been an intentional way to take a swipe at Pope Julius II and the Catholic Church, without having to admit fault, as very few people knew anything about human anatomy at the time and therefore couldn’t challenge the depiction.
Due to all his other works, Michelangelo’s work on the Pope’s tomb located in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, spanned over 40 years and was never finished to his satisfaction.
Leave a Reply