God stretches out his finger to give life to the reclining Adam. The two almost-touching hands have become one of the most reproduced images in human history. The scene is one of nine episodes from Genesis that Michelangelo painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Key facts
- Artist
- Michelangelo1475–1564 · Italian
- Date
- c. 1508–12
- Period
- Renaissance1400–1520
- Medium
- Fresco
- Dimensions
- 280 × 570 cm
- Location
- Vatican Museums Vatican City, Vatican City
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#D9D0BA#786748#4A341B#A49374#C7B89EBackground
In 1508 Pope Julius II ordered Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo, who thought of himself as a sculptor, accepted reluctantly, yet over four years he covered more than five hundred square metres, working on scaffolding some twenty metres above the floor.
Down the centre of the ceiling run nine stories from Genesis, from the separation of light and darkness to the drunkenness of Noah. The Creation of Adam lies near the middle and was painted around 1511–12.
Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo did not paint lying on his back but standing on scaffolding of his own design, craning upward. He wrote a sonnet mocking himself, his beard pointing to heaven and his spine bent like a bow, and sketched a caricature of himself beside it.
Technique & composition
Michelangelo treated the body with a sculptor's eye. muscles are full and firm, his pose recalling reclining river gods of classical sculpture, his body stretched along the slope in a graceful curve.
The composition is remarkably spare: the still earth and Adam on the left, and his angels sweeping in within a red mantle on the right. Between them lies empty space, drawing the eye to the narrow gap between .
A restoration from 1980 to 1994 removed centuries of candle soot and glue, revealing startlingly bright colours. Some critics argued that final dark glazes by the artist had been lost, but most scholars believe the cleaning restored Michelangelo as a colourist.
Details
Symbolism
The spark of life
Genesis says God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils. Michelangelo instead made the finger the channel, turning an abstract idea into a gesture anyone can grasp. Adam's finger is limp; God's is charged with energy; the gap between them is the instant before life is kindled.
God's brain?
In 1990 an American physician argued in a medical journal that enclosing God and the angels resembles a cross-section of the human brain, down to the brainstem and pituitary gland. He suggested Michelangelo was implying that God gave Adam intellect as well as life. The theory is unproven but widely discussed.
The woman in God's arm
God's left arm encircles who gazes curiously at Adam. She is often identified as Eve, not yet created; other scholars see the Virgin Mary or Sophia, the personification of Wisdom.
Stories
- Did you know?
The gap between the two fingertips is only about two centimetres. Part of Adam's hand flaked off and was repainted in a sixteenth-century restoration.
- Did you know?
The scene measures about 2.8 by 5.7 metres, yet from the floor twenty metres below the two hands look no bigger than a palm.
- Did you know?
The Sistine Chapel is where cardinals elect the pope; at every conclave they cast their votes beneath this ceiling.
Legacy
The Creation of Adam fixed the Western image of God as a powerful, white-bearded elder. Michelangelo's treatment of the body shaped Mannerism and the Baroque, inspiring Raphael, Rubens and many others.
The image of two reaching hands has been quoted endlessly, from the poster for the film E.T. to technology advertising and medical campaigns; it has become a universal symbol of connection and creation.
