The Secret of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam“
One of the most important of the frescoes he created up until 1512 for the Sistina chapel’s ceiling is, without a doubt, the Creation of Adam which, as made clear by the title, depicts the moment God gave life to Adam from the Book of Genesis.
What is never told in books is the particular meaning of the fresco: God, the angels, the drapes, seen together, represent a human brain.
The first to notice it was Frank Lynn Meshberger in 1990, but his interpretation was limited, in that he explained that "god is a creation of man".
But to understand Michelangelo's work we must consider his historical period: Michelangelo was a Neoplatonic.
The philosophy developed at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had ancient roots: Plato and his followers, the Jewish Cabbala, Chaldean magic and Christianity. From these foundations the men of the Florentine Renaissance developed new conceptions, in which the World takes on a dynamic aspect where man is nothing but an intermediate step between being and God. Man is no longer seen as something casual or fortuitous, but, on the contrary, function of a cause, and aimed at achieving unity with the rest of things through the intellect, the last step before the Divinity.
For neoplatinics it is the human intellect that creates as a god.
the intellect creates mental images that can be realized in reality.
Because: "AS ABOVE SO BELOW".
The title itself has a double reading:
1) God creates Adam "The creation of Adam"
2) What Adam creates "The creation of Adam"
Of course these philosophies could not be explicitly expressed, since they were heretical, so many artists and thinkers hid them, as Michelangelo did in his work.
What is never told in books is the particular meaning of the fresco: God, the angels, the drapes, seen together, represent a human brain.
The first to notice it was Frank Lynn Meshberger in 1990, but his interpretation was limited, in that he explained that "god is a creation of man".
But to understand Michelangelo's work we must consider his historical period: Michelangelo was a Neoplatonic.
The philosophy developed at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had ancient roots: Plato and his followers, the Jewish Cabbala, Chaldean magic and Christianity. From these foundations the men of the Florentine Renaissance developed new conceptions, in which the World takes on a dynamic aspect where man is nothing but an intermediate step between being and God. Man is no longer seen as something casual or fortuitous, but, on the contrary, function of a cause, and aimed at achieving unity with the rest of things through the intellect, the last step before the Divinity.
For neoplatinics it is the human intellect that creates as a god.
the intellect creates mental images that can be realized in reality.
Because: "AS ABOVE SO BELOW".
The title itself has a double reading:
1) God creates Adam "The creation of Adam"
2) What Adam creates "The creation of Adam"
Of course these philosophies could not be explicitly expressed, since they were heretical, so many artists and thinkers hid them, as Michelangelo did in his work.
