What Did Michelangelo Truly Believe About God?
Reinterpreting the code in The Creation of Adam (1508–1512)
Interpreting a work of art is a tricky business. Firstly, saying a work of art requires interpretation implies that the work contains artistic elements whose meaning or purpose is not obvious. Secondly, because interpreting a work of art is an evidence-based process, it follows that the evidence supporting a given interpretation should be convincing. Thirdly, it is worthwhile to determine whether an artist deliberately or subliminally included an artistic element in their work. An artistic element subliminally included is useful in assessing the artist’s influences. However, if an artistic element in a work of art has meaning beyond or different from the obvious theme of the work, and was intentionally included in the work, one can conclude the artist was conveying a coded message.
Recently I attended a lecture regarding coded messages found in the art of the world’s most renowned artists. I was surprised to learn Michelangelo had engaged in this practice as was discovered by Frank Lynn Meshberger, MD¹. Specifically, Meshberger showed how God and his angels, portrayed in the fresco, The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, were painted against a background constructed in the form of the human brain.
The evidence Meshberger provides supporting that the background image of the human brain encompassing God and his angels was deliberately included in the fresco is extensive and convincing. As such, I accept Michelangelo did indeed include this anatomical form as a coded message or idea. The critical task now becomes interpreting what Michelangelo was telling us by way of his coded message.
Prior to Meshberger‘s identification of the human brain construction surrounding God, the predominant interpretation of God’s purpose in the fresco was bestowing life to Adam; hence, the fresco’s title: The Creation of Adam. However, in light of his discovery, Meshberger proposed Michelangelo was telling us God’s purpose was not bestowing life to Adam, but instead, God was bestowing intellect.
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”.¹
I believe Meshberger’s interpretation misses the real point of Michelangelo’s coded message. Furthermore, I believe Meshberger failed to understand what Michelangelo was conveying due to his personal religious biases.
What follows is my interpretation of Michelangelo’s coded message, which differs radically from Meshberger’s interpretation, and reveals the more profound implications Michelangelo intended. I shall also present the reasoning supporting my interpretation.
A new interpretation of Michelangelo’s coded message
One significant feature of The Creation of Adam fresco, apart from the coded message, is Michelangelo’s horizontal placement of God relative to Adam, and placed so close physically they could touch with outstretched arms. This conveys equality and accessibility existing in God’s relationship with humanity. Traditional renderings of God prior to Michelangelo typically conformed to church doctrine; that is, with God positioned vertically above and out of humanity’s reach. Thus, The Creation of Adam revealed Michelangelo’s willingness to depart from artistic tradition and church dogma, and consider the relationship between God and humanity on his own terms.
Michelangelo’s willingness to defy artistic, and church conventions increased dramatically with age. For example, in his rendering of The Last Judgement (1534–1541), we see Jesus portrayed as Michelangelo conceived his appearance, beardless and naked. Likewise, before being deemed sacrilegious at the Council of Trent (1564) and elements of the work obscured, both Jesus and the Virgin Mary were portrayed naked with genitals exposed. Nevertheless, the work is still replete with nudity according to Michelangelo’s preferences, and disregarding those of the church.
The Last Judgement also reveals Michelangelo’s willingness to use his artwork as a method to convey obfuscated ideas of a personal nature outside the work’s thematic scope. For example, when Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican’s Papal Master of Ceremonies, gave a scathing review of this work, Michelangelo painted Minos, the judge of the underworld, with Biagio’s face. He also put donkey ears on the portrait and a snake biting his penis.² This shows Michelangelo considered what he thought and felt — right or wrong — took priority over the church’s concerns.
An additional factor determining what Michelangelo wanted to convey in his coded message was his profound intellectual acuity. Michelangelo’s genius likely outshone anyone representing his employer — the Vatican — and allowed him to consider God and humanity’s relationship apart from the milieu in which he was submerged and the religious dogma that was propagated. He was also likely to be keenly aware of the danger of expressing ideas contradicting church dogma. However, being as expressive an artist as Michelangelo was, particularly in expressing his obvious love of humanity, feeling forced to suppress his ideas about God’s relationship to man would have been anathema to him. Therefore, hiding his potentially dangerous church (Vatican) provoking ideas in his art may have provided him the necessary expressive solution.
Conclusion
Based on my reasons above, I submit that the embedded human brain image encompassing God and his angels in The Creation of Adam fresco had nothing to do with bestowing life, intellect, or any other attribute to Adam, but rather, represented Michelangelo’s true belief about the existence of God. I submit that the brain image was intended to convey Michelangelo’s belief that God exists only as a product of human thought; that is, only in the minds of humanity.
Sources
[1] Frank Lynn Meshberger, MD., An Interpretation Of Michelangelo’s Creation Of Adam Based On Neuroanatomy in Wellcorp’s International News To Use (2011), p. 4
[2] Norman E. Land, A Concise History of the Tale of Michelangelo and Biagio Da Cesena in Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 32, №4 (Summer 2013), pp. 15–19
