Text 7. The Creation of Adam

(From the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling

In the Vatican 1508–1512) Michelangelo an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect and poet

… Be our soul not our Lord’s alike,

Be steeped in scornful uselessness might we,

But beauty of the Universe

Is captivating us, and vainly we aspire

to cognize the mystery of the eternity…

So an artist and sculptor, Michelangelo in a poetic manner expressed the ideas he managed to realize in his fresco «The Creation of Adam».

This fresco is a part of imposing ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel – a former domestic church of the Pope in the Vatican. It was built at the time of Pope IV and thus received the name of the Sistine Chapel. At the same time, at the end of the 15^th century, the artists Ghirlandaio, Perujino and Boticelli painted frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Originally the celestial sphere covered with stars was depicted on the oval vault. In 1508 Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo to Rome specially to paint this huge space: the vault’s square in the Sistine Chapel is about six hundred square meters!

The artist worked on frescoes for four years and a half. «I am painting in incredible positions… I have to throw my head backwards all the time, my neck aches unbearably; it seems that eagle’s claws pierce my back, while the paint flowing off the brush is trickling into my eyes». Only Michelangelo’s greatest endurance and mastery allowed him to decorate the Sistine Chapel with the beautiful illustrations of Biblical legends.

At the highest point of the vault called decorated ceiling, the artist placed «The Creation of Adam» fresco.

«And the Lord created Man in his image, in the image of God», the Holy Scriptures say.

Having leaned on his right hand the first man was reclining on the ground. He is young and handsome but his body is yet weak and lifeless. There is so much submissiveness, amazement and hope in his look fixed on the Creator. And the Lord looks so imperiously, intently and purposefully. The finger is pointing out at the human being. And Adam, feeling the divine breath, wakes up for life.

It looks as though there is a fragile bridge between the two characters – almost a touch, almost a contact, almost a spark. And in this «almost» one can see Lord’s love towards his creation and at the same time an impossibility of a complete unification of the divine and the human.

Let us have a look at Michelangelo’s fresco from the point of view of composition. If one draws a line between the two figures, then a long, slightly curved line passing through the stretched hands will be the bearing point of the composition. Stressing the first line, the second one runs parallel to it connecting the two looks. Different parts of the characters’ bodies (the chest, the knee, the leg) are placed at the same level.

The figures are divided by the emptiness disturbed only by the stretched arms. The emptiness emphasizes the high space power and symbolizes an abyss separating the divine and the earthly.

Describing «The Creation of Adam» fresco art critics usually note that the Creator and angels are depicted inside the form similar to that of ellipse. Recently the investigators have put forward one more interesting version. If we look at Michelangelo’s work more carefully and recollect the basics of anatomy one can assume that Adam is reanimated not by the Lord but by a huge brain which imitates in detail the structure of the human brain!

In the contours of the bodies of the Creator and angels one can discern the side furrow separating the frontal section of the brain from the temporal one. The outlines of the right shoulder of Sahaoph remind of the middle frontal convolution. And the profile of one of the angels resembles the border between the frontal and sinciput parts of the brain.

Why did Michelangelo give no hints to his contemporaries about the real thing he had painted? It was dangerous. The artist could learn the brain structure only dissecting corpses. At the times of Michelangelo it was considered as an outrage of a dead body and deserved death punishment.

If we go further in our reasoning, we can assume that «The Creation of Adam» fresco is the confidential data ciphered by the master! Maybe Michelangelo wanted to inform the descendants about the universal brain that had created man?.. Certainly, this version may have both convinced supporters and fierce opponents.

The only thing is indisputable: the paintings made by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel take a special place in the art of Renaissance by their colossal profundity and perfection. And when we look at the fresco «The Creation of Adam» and wait for the moment their fingers touch and the divine spark passes between them, we ourselves become involved to some extent in a great mystery of the creation of Man.