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Explaining The Hidden Meaning Of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam

escargot

Disciple of Marduk
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What a genius Michalangelo was.

As if we need reminding! ;)

The Hidden Meaning Of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam
The link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed at the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/2016112...eaning-Of-Michelangelos-Creation-of-Adam.html

Long story short, this work can be interpreted as a representation of the human brain. Michelangelo dissected cadavers to learn about anatomy and he seems to have put this knowledge into his depiction of God's creation of Adam. So He is investing Man, not with life or consciousness but with the human intellect.

Here's the first section. I have added paragraph breaks as it's a rather dense read.

The Creation of Adam (1508-1512) on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has long been recognized as one of the world's great art treasures. In 1990 Frank Lynn Meshberger, M.D. described what millions had overlooked for centuries — an anatomically accurate image of the human brain was portrayed behind God.

On close examination, borders in the painting correlate with sulci in the inner and outer surface of the brain, the brain stem, the basilar artery, the pituitary gland and the optic chiasm. God's hand does not touch Adam, yet Adam is already alive as if the spark of life is being transmitted across a synaptic cleft.

Below the right arm of God is a sad angel in an area of the brain that is sometimes activated on PET scans when someone experiences a sad thought. God is superimposed over the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain and possibly the anatomical counterpart of the human soul.

God's right arm extends to the prefrontal cortex, the most creative and most uniquely human region of the brain.

The brilliant Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti painted magnificent frescoes on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, laboring from 1508 to 1512. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, Michelangelo performed this work himself without assistance.

Scholars debate whether he had any guidance from the Church in the selection of the scenes, and what meaning the scenes were to convey. In the fresco traditionally called the Creation of Adam, but which might be more aptly titled the Endowment of Adam, I believe that Michelangelo encoded a special message.

I was raised with art and knew this work from a young age, and always thought it looked like a representation of the brain. Didn't have enough anatomical knowledge to understand the details though.
 
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I read somewhere that because Michelangelo was probably gay he may have held some atheistic beliefs and that the brain imagery in the Creation of Adam was symbolic of God coming from within the mind of Man. Subversive, if you like.
 
There are multiple images on the MIA webpage. Here's an excerpt of the culminating text and image(s) relevant to the author's conclusion(s).

fig12-13 copy.jpg

Having studied these images of neuroanatomy, proceed to Michelangelo's Creation of Adam (Figure 11) and look at the image that surrounds God and the angels.

This image has the shape of a brain.

Figure 12 shows that Figure 2 is obtained by tracing the outer shell and the sulcus. Figure 13 shows that Figure 4 is a tracing of the outer shell and of major lines in the fresco of God and the angels. Therefore, Figures 1 and 3 are tracings of neuroanatomy drawn by Frank Netter, and Figures 2 and 4 are tracings from the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

The important point, however, is not to identify minute neuroanatomic structures in the fresco, but to see that the larger image encompassing God is compatible with a brain. Michelangelo portrays that what God is giving to Adam is the intellect, and thus man is able to "plan the best and highest" and to "try all things received".

(NOTE: You'll have to access the whole article to review Figures 1 through 4.)
 
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