The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo
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- Model: MICHELANGELO1-ht5025-ayzld
- MPN: 340000414299
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Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, Canvas Print, Oil Painting Replica and High Resolution Image Download
The Creation of Adam (Italian: Creazione di Adamo) is a painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, forming part of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, c. 1508-1512. It depicts the creation narrative from the Bible's Book of Genesis where God gives life to Adam, the first man. The fresco is part of a complex iconographic scheme and is chronologically the fourth in a series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis.
The painting has been replicated in countless imitations and parodies. Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam is one of the most copied religious paintings of all time.
While God is depicted as an elderly, white-bearded man wrapped in a whirling cloak, Adam in the lower left is completely naked. God's right arm is outstretched to impart the spark of life from his own finger into that of Adam; his left arm is extended in a pose mirroring that of God's, reminding us that man is created in the image and likeness of God.
Many hypotheses have been formulated about the identity and meaning of the twelve figures surrounding God. According to an interpretation first proposed by English art critic Walter Pater (1839–1894) and now widely accepted, the figure shielded by God's left arm represents Eve due to the figure's feminine appearance and gaze upon Adam, and the eleven other figures symbolically represent the unborn progeny of Adam and Eve, the souls of the entire human race. This interpretation has been objected to, primarily because the Catholic Church views the doctrine of pre-existence of souls as heretical. As a result, it has also been proposed that the figure behind God is simultaneously the Virgin Mary, Sophia (the personification of wisdom mentioned in the Book of Wisdom), personified human soul, or a "male-built angel".
The Creation of Adam is generally thought to illustrate the quote, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him." Michelangelo's source of inspiration for handling the subject could have come from the medieval hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus," which asks for a faithful speech from the 'finger of the paternal right hand' (digitus paternae dexterae).