On May 8, 1505, the thirty-year-old painter, sculptor, and architect, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, signed a contract with Pope Julius II to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, also known as Cappella Magna (‘Great Chapel’) of the Vatican.
The primary motifs of the ceiling are scenes from the Book of Genesis— that is, the Creation, the Fall of Man, and the story of Noah, along with various figures that depict man and his relationship with God, and the foretelling of Christ’s coming.
My favorite image on the ceiling is “The Creation of Adam,” in which God is depicted as trying to give life to the First Man.
Observe that, although Adam is well built, his posture is expressive of laziness. God reaches out to touch him, but Adam can scarcely muster the energy to sit up and extend his left arm and hand.
Some scholars have suggested that God is set in a tableau that resembles the human brain.
I suspect that the image was Michelangelo’s attempt to tell mankind, “You have a brain; if only you would use it.”
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Author: John Leake
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