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The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
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Date: ~1510
Style: High Renaissance
Series: Sistine Chapel Paintings
Genre: Catholic Religious Painting
Media: Fresco directly painted onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Location: Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome
Dimensions: 280 x 570 cm
The Creation of Adam by famous Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo is one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Pope Julius commissioned Michelangelo to do the painting circa 1510.
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11 Interesting Facts about The Creation of Adam
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1
The Creation of Adam is the second most copied painting in the world.
The most copied painting is The Last Supper by Da Vinci
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2
It is most famous for being the painting where the “fingers touch” – those of God and Adam.
However, in The Creation of Adam, the hands of God and Adam do not actually touch. The interaction symbolizes the gap between God and man.
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3
The Creation of Adam is part of a masterpiece by Michelangelo that contains over 300 other figures, stretching over 500 meters squared.
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4
It is a fresco painted directly on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. So you have to look up to see it. Fresco paintings are painted directly onto the plaster.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
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5
The total ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel by Michaelangelo took 4 years to complete and were completed in 1512.
The Creation of Adam section of the ceiling took 3 weeks.
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6
This painting is the fourth in the series of paintings depicting episodes from the Book of Genesis.
This painting is a representation of Genesis 1, verse 26. This Old Testament verse reads “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”.
This is conveyed by the pose of both God and Adam, who are mirroring each other.
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7
God is portrayed as an older man, surrounded by other figures.
God is the giver of life and Adam is reaching to receive it
Adam is naked, while God is fully-clothed,
Adam is lower down than God and their fingers are not touching, because he is waiting to receive the gift of life from God.
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8
God is surrounded by twelve figures which are identified as angels.
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9
There is a feminine figure that appears directly underneath God’s left arm and looks towards Adam. Generally, she is believed to be Eve, awaiting her own creation through Adam’s rib.
Others have suggested that this is a female angel.
However, some believe that she could be Mary, the mother of Jesus and that the child to her left, whose shoulder God is grazing with his fingers, could be Jesus himself.
If this speculation is true, then the scene is highly symbolic and is a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ that will ultimately rescue mankind from the original sin of Adam.
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10
The left hand of God also touches one of the angels. This angel has been suggested to starkly resemble Baby Jesus in the Doni Tondo (in the Uffizi Museum), and may thus be God’s idea for the creation of Jesus. If this is true, then this painting also symbolizes the future coming of Jesus to reconcile the sins of Adam and his descendants.
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11
The painting by Michelangelo reflects his great knowledge of anatomy that he acquired by performing dissections of the human body.
The reddish image that surrounds God and the angels has the shape of a brain.
It can be interpreted that this painting shows not only the gift of life by God but also the gift of intellect.
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Fun Facts about Michelangelo
- He was born in what was then the Republic of Florence in 1475.
- Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci are considered 2 of the greatest artists ever.
- His mother died when he was young, and he spent his childhood in the care of a nanny and her stone cutter husband.
- Florence turned out to be a great place for a budding artist to practice in. His early works were sculptures including the Madonna of the Steps.
- He worked on and off for the Medici, sculpting from marble.
- He created La Pieta at the request of a French ambassador to the cardinal at the age of just 24. This masterpiece is in St Peter’s Basilica.
- He finished the Statue of David before working on the Sistine Chapel between 1505 and 1512.
- His last major project was the completion of the design of St Peter’s Basilica.
- He died aged 88 in 1564.
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
