| Title: | Hand of God giving life to Adam |
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| Notes: | "Sometimes painters and sculptors are ahead of scholars when they suggest new interpretations of Scripture. For example, when Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to decorate the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he was asked by the pontiff to read the biblical commentaries of a Dominican scholar. Michelangelo read them, but he went his own way. Thus, in the fresco of the creation of man, he represented God transmitting, finger-to-finger, to the newly sculpted body of Adam, the spark of life. Under the left arm, God harbored a beautiful young woman, whom art historians, to this day, identify as the yet-uncreated Eve. Such a traditional interpretation is not convincing. In this fresco, the image of the young woman differs markedly from the picture of Eve which appears elsewhere on the vaulted ceiling of the chapel. In the representation of Adam receiving the spark of life, the young woman is Lady Wisdom, a personification of the Creator's intelligence, which is found in the sapiential literature of the Old Testament." (God's Word/Samuel Terrien, 268) |
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| Date: | 1508-1512 |
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| Artist: | Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564 |
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| Building: | Sistine Chapel
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| Object/Function: | Fresco |
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| Country: | Vatican City
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| Person as Subject: | God (Biblical figure)
Adam (Biblical figure)
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| General Subject: | Wisdom
Hand of God
Creation of Adam
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| Permalink: |
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54258
(Use this link to refer back to this image.)
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| Copyright Source: | http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam821/3077868328/ |
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| Copyright Permission: | Please visit the URL in the Copyright Source field on this page for details about reusing this image. |
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| Attribution: | Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564. Hand of God giving life to Adam, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54258 [retrieved April 24, 2024]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam821/3077868328/. |
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| Record Number: | 54258
Last Updated: 2021-08-04 13:04:36
Record Created: 2009-03-19 13:19:29 |
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| Institution: | Vanderbilt University
Collection: Art in the Christian Tradition |
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| Bibliographic Source: | God's Word for Our World, vol. 2 |
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| Publisher: | Continuum |
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| Date: | 2004 |
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