COVER COMMENT

THE CREATION OF ADAM BY MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475–1564)

O
ur propensity to believe that an outline of the human the Medici entourage and there he obtained a humanist education,
brain is inscribed in one of the most famous paintings of including some knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, Dante, and
the godhead is both a reflection of the revolution initiated Petrarch. Much of what we know about his early life comes from
by the Renaissance and a function of how the organ of our his autobiography, written with the assistance of Giorgio Vasari, a
humanity psychophysically interprets images. In 1306, Giotto more than competent artist who authored the first great collection
completed a cycle of frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua and of artistic biographies. According to Vasari (1511–1574), who
signed them, thus forsaking the anonymity of the old art of the would have known about these matters since he was nine when
Middle Ages and Byzantium and initiating the Italian Renaissance, Raphael died and outlived Michelangelo by ten years, the young
a period in which the personality of the Western artist became a Michelangelo began to do anatomical dissections at age 18 in the
conspicuous component of his artwork. The figures in Giotto’s Monastery of Santo Spirito in Florence (7); these dissections would
paintings bore strong resemblances to living models, and the later influence the content and manner of his paintings and serve
emotive content of their faces was true to life. The rediscovery of as the source material for the hidden symbols he may have inserted
Greek and Roman artifacts, with their idealized conception of the into the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo moved to
human form, and the importation into Europe via Arab scholars of Rome when he was 22 and was able to study the antiquities in the
the humanistic works of Greek philosophers prepared the Italian collection of Cardinal Riario; this experience confirmed him in his
soil for the straightforward assertion of individual identity and the artistic ambition and led to some of his first triumphs. He returned
inexorable evolution of the cultural craftsman from artisan to artist. to Florence, where for eight years he competed with his only true
Whereas the primitive simplifications and flatness of Byzantium rival, Leonardo, for multiple commissions and, after the creation of
remained a strong influence on artists in Spain and in the Germanic his “David,” (1504) was often recalled to Rome for special projects.
north, the innovations of Giotto and his successors radically It was in 1508 that Pope Julius II gave him the assignment to paint
changed the depiction of the human form throughout the south; as the Sistine Chapel. It was a strange request since the artist saw
a consequence of the discovery of single point perspective before himself as a sculptor of marble first and lamented that he was not
1413 by the architect Filippo Brunellschi (4), this revolution much of a painter. In 1512, at the age of 37, Michelangelo
reached its apogee towards the end of the fifteenth century in the completed what is widely considered the greatest unified
city-states of Florence, Venice, and Rome. Almost two centuries installation of paintings in Western history.
after the completion of the Arena Chapel, artists regularly Michelangelo managed to cover nearly 10,000 square feet of a
received commissions for both secular and religious subjects; in highly irregular, leaky vault with more than 340 figures while
each realm they attempted to meld the religious prescriptions of painting on his back and by candlelight. The Creation of Adam is the
the Catholic Church with the new emphasis on human agency. most iconic section of the great ceiling and is one of the world’s
Today it is difficult for any commentator to write about the High most reproduced paintings. Adam is depicted as receiving the gift
Renaissance in Italy without sounding stupid or stupefied; five of life from the athletic and muscular (i.e. indestructible) God of the
hundred years later on, what has not been said? Has there ever Hebrew Bible (or is it Jupiter?) as if an electric spark were jumping
been praise enough for the group of artists that includes Titian, the gap between their outstretched fingertips. God the Father and
Veronese, and Tinteretto in the north of Italy and Raphael, his attendant angels are seen against a billowing cloth as if God
Michelangelo, and Leonardo in the south? were acting from within a whirlwind. In the conventional
Of the three masters in Florence and Rome, Raphael died too interpretation of this tapestry, the Eternal is circumscribed not by a
young and largely restricted himself to painting, while Leonardo, brain but by an ellipse (symbolizing the ‘cosmic egg’) composed of
both scientist and artist, was continuously subverted by his own his celestial mantle and angelic spirits, while Adam forms only an
curiosity so that once a problem was solved in principle he incomplete oval. In this painting, Michelangelo conjoins the
abandoned the unfinished work of art for the next intellectual Biblical narrative of man, having been created in the image of God,
challenge. It remained for Michelangelo, artist and poet, to produce with the Platonic concept by which ideal beauty mirrored on earth
a large enough body of work in both painting and sculpture to paradoxically frees the spirit from material bondage (1). Though
adequately support the nickname given to him by his the sexual allure of Adam’s beauty has been discussed within the
contemporaries, Il Divino. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in context of Michelangelo’s homosexuality, a practice to which he
1475, in Tuscany, in the small town of Caprese. The family soon was introduced in the court of Lorenzo de Medici, it is easy to see
moved to Florence where they owned a good-sized farm not far that the perfection and accuracy of Adam’s face and body are
from the marble quarries. Despite his father’s protests, largely determined by Greek idealism and the knowledge
Michelangelo apprenticed himself to the painter Domenico Michelangelo gained from anatomical dissections.
Ghirlandaio. Through a distant family relation, he was placed in Over the centuries, interpretations of the great painting have

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Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508–12): The Creation of Adam, 1511–12 (fresco) (post restoration) by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Vatican Museums
and Galleries, Vatican City, Italy/Bridgeman Art Library.

undergone tremendous change. For example, given the similarity brain has been called a metaphor-making machine.
between the faces of God and Adam, it’s not even clear as to who is On the other hand, the rills and ridges within the concave folds
creating whom; is God breathing life into Adam or is God a concept of the drapery strongly resemble the “greenstick” dissection many
in Adam’s mind? The notion of the mind as a uniquely human of us made as medical students in fresh brains by the simple
property and its centrality in Renaissance thought are critical to any expedient of scratching the inner aspect of a hemisphere with a dull
modern interpretation. Though Adam is a perfect physical wooden probe, thus uncovering horizontal association fibers or
specimen, his facial expression is bland, and he raises his hand in a such projection systems as the optic radiations—a technique
listless manner (2). Since Adam is clearly alive at the time that his certainly available to Michelangelo in Renaissance Italy. Further-
fingertip almost touches that of God—he is fully formed and his more, several other statues and paintings by Michelangelo seem to
eyes are open—is God merely breathing life into Adam or is he contain distinct medical references (6). A striking example is the
transferring the state of consciousness that makes a truly human life mantle of the Creator in The Separation of the Land and Water, a Sistine
possible? Furthermore, God’s left arm encircles a beautiful female fresco immediately adjacent to The Creation of Adam, recently
figure that has intrigued commentators from the beginning; identified by nephrologists as a bisected right kidney (2). Of course,
variously interpreted as the uncreated Eve, or Sophia, the goddess a cynic might suppose that neurologists and nephrologists are
of divine wisdom. In some Christian traditions, Sophia is seen as the prone to discover brains and kidneys everywhere. In the case of The
grandmother of Jehovah or even the bride of God. Sophia appears Creation of Adam, the possibly intentional resemblance of the
in the Song of Songs and corresponds to the feminine side of God in draperies to the brain is not only supported by Michelangelo’s own
Cabalistic philosophy. This conjecture was but a step away from the history of anatomical dissection but by his interpretation of Platonic
astonishing suggestion made in 1990 by a medical student, FL philosophy and the appropriateness of the brain as a symbol of the
Meshberger, that the drapery containing God and his attendants is major theme of the painting, the nature of the divine gift that makes
actually a depiction of the human brain (5), a coded reference that us truly human.
the divine gift humans receive from God is not merely life but the
Michael Salcman
intellect (6); locating Sophia at the very center of the brain seems to
Baltimore, MD
make eminent sense. Once our own brains are alerted to this
possibility, it is not difficult to assemble the appropriate clues to REFERENCES
1. Canaday J: The Lives of the Painters. Norton, New York, 1969, p.222–223 vol. 1.
identify the frontal and temporal poles in the drapery to the left of
2. De Wald ET: Italian Painting 1200–1600. Holt Rinehart & Winston, New York,
God’s right hand, the Rolandic sulcus above and behind his head,
1961, p.382.
and the backs and legs of two angels seen from behind as the 3. Eknoyan G: Michelangelo: art, anatomy, and the kidney, Kidney Int
pituitary stalk, pons, and spinal cord hanging just below God’s right 57:1190–1201, 2000.
thigh. The problem with this interpretation is the well-known 4. Kemp M: Visualizations: The Nature Book of Art and Science. University of
property of our visual systems to fill in details and create meaning California Press, Berkeley, 2000, p.28–29.
where no pattern or meaning may have been intended. As the great 5. Mershberger FL: An interpretation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam based
on neuroanatomy. JAMA 264:1837–1841, 1990.
Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning has said, there is no
6. Strauss RM, Marzo-Ortega H: Michelangelo and Medicine. J R Soc Med
picture so abstract that it does not contain a resemblance to 95:514–515, 2002.
something the mind already knows. This facility in finding patterns 7. Vasari G (G. Bull, trans), The Lives of the Artists. Penguin, Harmondsworth,
is related to the brain’s gift for metaphorical association; indeed, the 1965, pp.332–333.

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