Still life

Madonna and the child

1501-05
Marble, height: 128 cm (including base)
O.L. Vrouwekerk, Bruges

In this group Michelangelo, deliberately harking back to the hieratic forms of Byzantine and medieval iconography, represents the Child standing between his mother's knees and enveloped in her robe. This work, just under life-size and highly finished with the same care and refinement as the Pietà, was sold to a Flemish merchant and shipped to Flanders soon after it was finished.

Creation of Eve

1509-10
Fresco, 170 x 260 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

In response to the gesture and intense gaze of the Creator, Eve appears to rise from the rocks behind Adam rather than from his body, extending her joint hands. The bodies of the couple appear to be those of adolescents, in contrast to those depicted in the scene of the Fall and Expulsion. The figure of the Lord, wrapped in a voluminous violet mantle that only allows a glimpse of the red tunic he wears in the other scenes of the Creation, draws on an iconographic tradition dating back to Giotto and Masaccio, from which it is differentiated, however, by the blond hair and beard framing the face. The Creation of Woman is a design cast in simple, powerful form that contains a certain demonic element. The God and Demiurge, as conceived in the earlier medieval tradition, fills the space between heaven and earth as if about to erupt out of it, lifting his arms with an incantatory gesture and a supernatural air. More is indicated here than mere physical creation: it is the conception of the female mirror-image drawn forth from the sleeping Adam, who is fettered to a stunted tree shaped like the Staurus, the Egyptian cross. Is he the archetypal son destined to become the Mediator and endure the Passion? The composition forms a right-angled triangle with Adam as the horizontal and God the Father the vertical element, and Eve, in an attitude of adoration, striving towards the hand of God as a diagonal hypotenuse. Theirs is a harmonious Pythagorean unity of spirits prior to their separation. This astounding fresco dominating the centre of the entire vault links Ezekiel and the Sibyl of Cumae, thus underlining the importance of the grand design of the law of polarity!

Creation of Adam

1510
Fresco, 280 x 570 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

The fourth scene in the chronological order of the narrative, the Creation of Adam, is depicted in the large field of the vault of the sixth bay, between the triangular spandrels. Michelangelo's organization of the Sistine ceiling frescos represents perhaps the most complex composition in Western art. The space contains an intricate pseudo structure of architecture that frames the sculpture-like forms. Out of the nine narrative scenes depicting events from Genesis, the most sublime scene is this "Creation of Adam," in which his new vision of humanity attains pictural form. It is scarcely possible to put into words the impressions roused by this marvellous painting; it is as though current passed from the painted scene to the beholder, who often feels that he is assisting at a hallowed world-shaking event. Michelangelo experiences the stages of creation within himself, retracing the way to the divine source by the double path of religion and of art. Now that, inspired by God, he has given form to Eve, elliptical and parabolic shapes begin to multiply; the number of orbits with two focal points increase. These were copied blindly during the following two centuries and became a decorative commonplace.Precisely here, where man the microcosm and incarnate Word made in the divine image, the Adam Kadmon of Cabalistic doctrine, issues from the hand of God as the fingers of the Father and the son touch in a loving gesture, it is significant and convincing that the Eternal is circumscribed by the ellipse (symbolizing the 'cosmic egg') of his celestial mantle and angelic spirits, while Adam forms only an incomplete oval. Through the extended hands and arms the creative flash passes from one orbit to the other. Love radiates from the face of God and from the face of man. God wills his child to be no less than himself. As if to confirm this, a marvellous being looks out from among the host of spirits that bear the Father on their wings; a genius of love encircled by the left arm of the Creator. This figure has intrigued commentators from the beginning and has been variously interpreted as the uncreated Eve, or Sophia, divine wisdom. Be that as it may, this figure undoubtedly signifies beatific rapture.

Christ Carrying the Cross

1521
Marble, height 205 cm
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome

In this work, as in the 1499 Pietà, Michelangelo did not portray pain as redemption in the medieval way, but perfect beauty as the expression of its consequence.