How does this encounter make you feel?
God reaches out to almost touch Adam
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Bright emotions
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Quiet emotions
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Heavy emotions
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Sombre emotions
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Not at all Extremely
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God reaches out to almost touch Adam
Date
c. 1511
Description
Creator of the image: Michelangelo
Date of the image creation: c. 1511
Medium: Fresco
Person depicted: Adam
This detail is taken from the fresco painted onto the roof of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1511 and 1512 by the Renaissance master Michelangelo. This panel, ‘The Creation of Adam’ is one of the most recognizable and replicated religions paintings of all time, inspiring countless reproductions and parodies. It is one detail of a much larger artwork that covers the entire ceiling of the chapel. The artwork is composed across more than 500 square meters of ceiling, and is 13.4 metres above the chapel’s main floor. This height meant that Michelangelo had to design a wooden scaffold to raise him to within arms reach of the chapel’s ceiling, whereupon he spent countless hours standing with his head tilted back and working above his head.
This complex iconographic image depicts interpretations of a number of biblical stories and characters, with the centre showing several scenes from the creation narrative as taken from the Book of Genesis. The creation of Adam is one of these moments. This detail captures the moment when God breathed life into Adam, with the two figures reaching towards one another. Adam’s pose mirrors Gods, with the creation taking on the likeness of his Creator, as it says in Genesis: ‘God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him’ (1:27). Michelangelo captured the two figures much such skill and passion that the ensemble of their expressions and poses, their colours and contours, the play of light and shadow all come together to animate them with a kind of living beauty that is an ode to the miracle of creation.
In one bizarre contemporary interpretation the scene, Frank Lynn Meshberger and Tony B. Rich suggest that the behind the image of God is a depiction of the human brain, and in particular ‘the limbic system’ of the brain — the emotional brain: ‘Below the right arm of God is a sad angel in an area of the brain that is sometimes activated on PET scans when someone experiences a sad thought. God is superimposed over the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain and possibly the anatomical counterpart of the human soul. God’s right arm extends to the prefrontal cortex, the most creative and most uniquely human region of the brain.’
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Choose different variables below, and see the patterns of response reflected in the circle of emotion above. Your responses are the coloured wedges. Others' responses are averaged in the spider graph of lines and dots.
