Michaelangelo’s “Creation of God”

The Creation of Adam (c. 1511–1512) is a section of the fresco painted by Michelangelo for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. The image is widely reknown and recognized.  What almost everyone has missed is the hidden message that Michelangelo inserted: a human brain associated  with the figure of God.

Michelangelo Buonarroti famously dissected human corpses to achieve unprecedented anatomical accuracy in his sculptures and paintings, defying convention in the late 15th century. Starting in his teens at the convent of Santo Spirito, he studied musculature and bone structure from cadavers. This intensive, often secret study enabled lifelike details in his masterpieces.

This particular section of the Sistine Chapel likely features a hidden, anatomically accurate illustration of the human brain in the image surrounding God and his angels. The hidden imagery suggests that God is not just imparting life, but specifically "divine intellect," consciousness, or the human mind to Adam.

The figures and shapes that make up the figure representing God also make up an anatomically accurate figure of the human brain.  The bottom-most angel that appears to bear the image of God is the brainstem. The foot of another angel is the pituitary gland. 

In Michelangelo's picture, God has been superimposed on the limbic system which is the emotional centre of the brain and arguably the anatomical counterpart of the human soul. God's right arm extends through the prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of human reason and deliberation and so of the imagination and creativity that marks us out from all other animals.

The ingenuity and level of detail in Michaelango's imagery are simply staggering and a lasting testament to Michelangelo's extraordinary knowledge of human anatomy. 

What do you make of this imagery?