Even if you've never looked at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, at least 1 out of 9 frescoes are familiar to you: hands reaching out to each other have become a recognizable symbol around the world. The author of this work is Michelangelo Buonarroti, who managed not only to create a real masterpiece but also to encrypt it, which changes the meaning of the famous biblical story.
Let's start with the fact that Michelangelo was set up: he was given a job that he should not have done.
Before you begin to decipher one of the most famous frescoes, it is worth getting acquainted with the history of its creation and the artist himself. Michelangelo Buonarroti is better known as a sculptor, and his statue of David has overshadowed all antique, Greek and Roman sculptures. Cooperation with the Pope (Julius II) did not begin with ordering frescoes, but with a personal tomb for the head of the Catholic Church. But his enemies decided to leave Michelangelo unemployed and told his father that the construction of the tomb in life was a dubious idea and could cause trouble. The task was postponed, but the envious people did not calm down. They pointed Julius II to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and hinted that it requires renovation, advising to entrust this case to Buonarroti. According to the idea, Michelangelo, who had no experience in painting, had to fail the order and humiliated to leave Rome. But the artist was not so simple: he chose the materials himself, designed the scaffolding and began work.
Frescoes on the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel are astonishing even today, and it is hard to believe that such a person can create. The master really had a hard time: after 4 years of painting the ceiling, Michelangelo earned arthritis, scoliosis and ear infection due to the paint that hit his face. And the church turned out to be a capricious customer: Dad forgot to pay for the materials in time, but at the same time he constantly pushed the artist and interfered in the process with the requirement to correct the colors to look richer.
When the work was over, Julius II was satisfied, and the frescoes with subjects from Genesis made the church visitors lose the ability to speak. The fourth painting called "The Creation of Adam" became the most popular.
Version 1: Michelangelo encoded the human brain in the fresco.
"And God created man in His own image," says Genesis 1:27. Michelangelo had his own interpretation of this phrase, and, according to the popular version, the artist placed the third important participant in the creation of a rational being - the human brain - on the same fresco as Adam and God. Buonarroti seems to hint that man is capable of looking complete (like Adam on a fresco), but he will not be able to approach the Creator without the ability to think. Or, which sounds even more provocative, everything is created by man, and God is the fruit of his imagination (because this ability is the main difference between man and animal). And such a theory already runs counter to religious ideology.
We would like to remind you that in 1511 it was possible to lose not only one's job, but also one's life for the statement about the origin of man from the point of view of science. The artist was also famous for his interest in anatomy and was engaged in autopsies. And not only did Buonarroti confess his love for his passion, but he also did it on the ceiling of the church in the Vatican.
Since the artist knew the structure of the man in detail, he did not interfere with the application of anatomy in his works:
- Many scientists noted the similarity of the outlines of God's cloak to the contours of the human brain.
- Silvio's side crack is a very deep furrow that separates the temporal and parietal lobes.
- The lowest angel, who holds God, with his outlines reminiscent of a brain stem.
- The pituitary gland is responsible for the endocrine system, and on the fresco he is depicted as an angel's leg.
- God's right hand passes through the prefrontal cortex, which is the place of the human mind, imagination and creativity.
- A woman's silhouette under God's hand forms a marginal gyrus.
- The angel, which is at the feet of the Creator, forms the contours of a corner gyrus.
- A waving scarf is a vertebral artery that has a winding shape.
- The bent knee of an angel is a crossroads of optic nerves, where optic nerve fibers partially intersect.
- The Creator himself is in place of the limbic system, which is the emotional center of the brain and the anatomical analogue of the soul.
Version 2: God's cloak looks like a uterus.
There is another, less popular but quite interesting medical interpretation of Michelangelo's masterpiece. Scientists saw in the outlines of God's cloak the postpartum uterus and suggested that the artist demonstrated the birth of mankind, and the navel of Adam was not a mistake at all. And in this version the green angel scarf is an umbilical cord.
Scientists have also noticed the contour of the female body - a blue hill, which is behind Adam, and above his head rises the chest. And the fact that Adam lies on the boulder, too, is no accident: according to ancient beliefs, many deities were born of stones.
Why is Adam only in the process of creation, and already looks like a ready man?
It would seem that Adam's creation should have looked somehow different, but on the fresco he looks like a complete "preparation for a man", though without vital energy. And God, on the contrary, is full of strength. Scientists assume that the point at which the fingers of God and Adam touch is a synaptic slit, and Michelangelo depicted the concept of bioelectricity, through which many physiological and behavioral reactions are carried out. However, scientists are interested in electrical processes in living organisms only in the XVIII century. It turns out that Michelangelo's synaptic slit is either a coincidence or a scientific prophecy.
If we believe this theory, the fresco "Creation of Adam" is not about the creation of man as a biological species, but about the emergence of him as a person. And God is not a powerful creature that made life, but the energy without which man could not be considered complete.
And how do you think, whether Michelangelo intentionally depicted God in the form of a human organ or modern scientists played out a fantasy?