Clip Art
You recognize this famous work of art. What is it called, and where is it located?
Laon Cathedral, France
Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila, Bulgaria
Il Duomo, Florence, Italy
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, Israel
Answer: (B)
The Creation of Adam, painted by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (aka, Michelangelo) c. 1508-1512, is the fourth in a series of panels done as part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Painted in the fresco style (painted quickly on wet plaster), the work illustrates the biblical narratives in Genesis 1-2 of God giving life to Adam.
Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling in 1508. The original plan was to paint 12 apostles in the pendentives (curved triangles of vaulting) with decorative motifs around the rest of the ceiling. However, Michelangelo considered this a “poor thing” and convinced the pope to allow him to paint whatever he saw fit. This included nine stories from Genesis, 12 prophets and sibyls (male prophets from Israel and female prophetesses from the Classical world), Christ’s forefathers, and episodes of the people of Israel’s salvation, to name but a few pieces of this grand ceiling.
Michelangelo painted the most famous aspects of the Sistine Chapel—the ceiling and the Last Judgment on the altar wall. But Vatican City’s beloved chapel also holds paintings by other famous artists, such as Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Cosimo Rosselli, along the walls.