While visiting Rome years ago, I walked with a crowd of tourists into the Sistine Chapel. I was stunned. From floor to walls to ceiling, the entire space was covered with glorious Christian art. My gaze was drawn upward towards the ceiling. I lifted my head and strained my neck to view the wonderful fresco of the creation of Adam by Michelangelo.
The Creation of Adam. (Wikipedia, public domain)
God the Father extends his right arm to the figure of Adam who is lifting himself from the earth and raising his left arm. The index finger of God nearly touches the extended hand of the man –but not quite. Something awesome happens in that space.
Recently, a local artist challenged me to look again at the figure of the Father in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. He wanted me to focus on the swirling cape from which God creates. The cape in which the Creator-Father emanates represents something physical, he said. “I’m not going to tell you what it is but you’ll discover it.”
I purposely did not look up any expert discussion of the patterns and symbolism of the Creation of Adam, but it occurred to me that Michelangelo had trained on cadavers and understood the anatomy of humans from the inside. Just look at his sculpture of David or Moses. Michelangelo knew human anatomy well. But, is the robe of God somehow anatomical?
Following upon my artist friend’s challenge–through the miracle of on-line viewing– I took another look at the fresco. I was trying to make sense out of the whirling robe of God. The Creator tosses life to Adam from within a shadowy context and with intense effort bids Adam to live.
I thought at first that the Father was moving out of a dark dust storm. Dust…. The bible says that we are dust (Genesis 3:19). The bible also says that God knelt down in mud and with the artistry of a master potter created the figure of a man and then blew into it the breath of life (Genesis 2:7).
Although there is a powerful wind from which the Father emanates and Adam is definitely reclining on the ground, the Father is not kneeling, nor is he blowing into the nostrils of the man and there’s no mud. So, God’s flowing garment is not a whirlwind of dust.
Yesterday, while I was praying morning prayer, I found myself saying the words of Psalm 110:3. “Before the dawn, I begot you from the womb.” Could that cloudy thing from which the Creator emanates be the primordial womb?
At this point I needed to read what the experts have come up with.
Many expositions of this fresco take the position that Michelangelo intended that the robe be in the anatomical form of the two main lobes of the human brain. It certainly looks like the outline of a human brain.
To me, however, the physical form of the human brain is not very impressive and it’s encased in the cranium. In Michelangelo’s day, little was known about how the brain functions and the science of neurology did not exist.
The uterus, however, is easily seen simply by cutting open the abdomen. There it lies, a chamber from which with great urgency a human life is sprung through the labia to a waiting world. A great deal of mystery still surrounds the creation of life within the womb.
I side with those who see in God’s garment the form of a womb. It looks like it could be a human uterus. And, isn’t that green ribbon the umbilical cord trailing?
I must agree that a good argument can be made that God is creating from the background of a human brain. But I’m sticking with Psalm 110. It’s a womb. I’m not sure that my artist friend will agree with me.
Incidentally, if there’s not a womb somehow involved, why else would Adam have a navel? Yes, Adam does have a belly button, a detail that’s hard to miss in Michelangelo’s representation of the first man.