Seven Luminous Days

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In the Bible, God creates through speech. He says the Word, and it is. “God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). But in the various depictions of God in the Creation mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, he never opens his mouth. His creative work requires only the slightest gesture. He tilts his head, and the heavens appear. He extends his arm, and trees sprout leaves. His right hand—raised in the classic Roman oratorical gesture called ad locutio—is enough to convey speech. The cathedral mosaics present the Creation as the supreme act of mind and will, of divine intelligence, not physical exertion.

The Cathedral or Duomo (Italian for Dome) of Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale was built by the Norman King William II 018(1172–1189). Under Arab control from the ninth century, Sicily fell to the Normans in 1091, when Noto, the last major Saracen stronghold on the island, surrendered to William’s grandfather, Roger de Hauteville.

William was about 21 when work began on his cathedral and an accompanying monastery. Hoping to impress his subjects—and the bishop—with his piety and wealth, he built his superior edifice only 5 miles away from the bishop’s own cathedral in Palermo. To quiet the church’s doubts over the Normans’ right to the throne, William commissioned an unusual mosaic (photo, above) of Jesus crowning him king of Sicily.

The upper stories of the cathedral interior are covered with mosaics—54,000 square feet and 130 scenes in all (photo, above). Each scene has a gold background, creating a dazzling, luminous effect. In the apse at the eastern end of the church, above the altar, looms a colossal mosaic bust of Jesus: The face is 10 feet tall; Jesus’ right hand is 6 feet long.

Near the altar, in the transept (the cross arms of the church, perpendicular to the nave or main hall), the mosaics retell Jesus’ life story. The double row of mosaics that line the nave walls is devoted to the Old Testament. The upper register on the south wall (at right in the photo above) extends from the Creation to God commanding Noah to build the ark. The lower level continues the story from Noah building the ark to Jacob wrestling the angel.

Most of the scenes are heavily peopled (or animaled) and bustle with activity: Adam labors, Noah and sons build, Cain murders, Esau hunts. The Creation scenes, in comparison, depict a very different realm: quiet, still and deliberate.

The Beginning

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.

Above: A dark band of tesserae (mosaic tiles) separates the heavenly realm, where God presides, from the aquatic abyss. This first mosaic in the Creation series is wedged between the southern transept wall and the first (easternmost) window on the south wall of the nave.

God’s arms frame the opening line of Genesis in Latin: “In principio creavit Deus [abbreviated ‘DS’] caelum et terram [abbreviated celu a tra].”

A white dove represents the “spirit of God.” In the writings of the early church fathers, the “spirit” of Genesis 1 was identified with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, typically depicted in Christian art as a dove.

The mosaic offers a literal interpretation of the “face of the waters.” The waves are created from the undulating hair of a grim sea-creature, reminiscent (at least to modern viewers) of the Near Eastern sea creature Tianat, who features in the creation myths of Mesopotamia.

Day 1

Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night.

Above: Sitting on an orb, God raises his right hand in blessing, and a cluster of seven angels (one for each day of Creation) appears, flames bursting behind them.

Early Jewish and Christian artists strictly interpreted the biblical prohibition against making images (Exodus 20:4) and thus refrained from depicting God. In their art, God’s presence was suggested by a hand reaching down from the heavens. But in the late medieval 019period, especially in Italy, God was depicted from head to toe. In Creation scenes, he often appears as a youthful bearded man, with long brown hair. That is, he looks like the Jesus of the Monreale apse mosaic. The Creator’s long, bearded face, his parted hair and his blue cloak over a gold tunic are identical to those of Jesus. This may be an attempt to show that Jesus was created in God’s image, or it may be a visual expression of the mysterious opening lines of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him” (John 1:1). If Jesus is the Word, then he was present and active at the Creation. So artists gave the Creator the face of Jesus.

Yet there are telling differences between Jesus and the Creator in the mosaics: First, the Creator’s halo is a simple gold circle outlined with a line of white tiles; Jesus’ halo incorporates a cross motif. Second, God carries a scroll, representing the Law of the Hebrew Bible; Jesus holds an open book, representing the Gospel.

Day 2

And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome sky.

Below: It is a difficult passage to comprehend, let alone depict. Here, the water that appeared below God’s feet in the previous scene is shown inside a half dome, too.

Once again, God appears at left—the right side from his vantage point and the preferred side in medieval art.

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Day 3

And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so: The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.

Above: God can finally rest his feet. They no longer swing in nothingness. Yet even on earth, God seems of another world, separated from his creation by his orb and by the golden air that surrounds him.

Bending toward the Creator, the fruit-bearing tree at center is an ominous sign of events to come.

Day 4

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.

God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Above: Still seated on his orb, God has floated to the heavens. He extends his arm, and the red sun, the blue moon and the golden stars appear in the heavens. God’s connection to the heavens is made visible through color. The colors of his orb and the heavenly sphere are the same—ranging from white to deep blue, although in reverse order.

Day 5

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Above: Peacock, stork, dove, pheasant and a variety of fish pause before God, awaiting his next command. In the teeming waters, the fish are beautifully rendered 022so that they appear to swim in and out of the waves. This naturalism does not extend to the birds, some of which appear to stand in mid-air.

Day 6

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.

Above: The breath of God appears as a band of white, tan and blue tesserae running between God’s cheek (rather than his mouth) and Adam’s. Adam, like Jesus in the apse mosaic, bears a striking resemblance to God, in whose image he is made.

Unlike God, however, who is perfectly balanced on his orb, Adam perches awkwardly on a rocky hillock, balancing himself with one arm. Above him appears a distinctive herd of animals, including lion, cattle, camel, elephant, zebra, ass, horse and ram. Adam may have dominion over the animals, but in this mosaic, each beast has his (or her) eye on God. Like the birds in the preceding panel, the animals stand on air.

Day 7

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

Above: The break in the narrative is immediately apparent: God no longer conducts the Creation from the left edge of the scene but occupies the center of the mosaic panel. His work is done.

God’s head sags, his arms droop, the lines under his eyes seem deeper. He is wearied by Creation. Even the land looks tired, compared with its vibrance four days before. The trees bear no fruit. The flowers are drooping. It is time to rest.

All photos by the Casa Editrice Mistretta, Palermo, Italy. See their popular guide The Cathedral of Monreale (2000). For further reading, see Ernst Kitzinger, The Mosaics of Monreale (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1960), and Otto Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949).

In the Bible, God creates through speech. He says the Word, and it is. “God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). But in the various depictions of God in the Creation mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, he never opens his mouth. His creative work requires only the slightest gesture. He tilts his head, and the heavens appear. He extends his arm, and trees sprout leaves. His right hand—raised in the classic Roman oratorical gesture called ad locutio—is enough to convey speech. The cathedral mosaics present the Creation as the supreme act of […]