Creation of Adam, Genesis 1:27 Wall Art

Two fingers and a spark

On the upper left, the Creator leans out of a bank of blue-gray and gold clouds, wearing a white robe with a red cloak and a blue drape. He has brown hair and a short beard, a younger face than Michelangelo's white-bearded figure, and his arm is fully extended with the index finger pointing.

Adam reclines on a grassy mound at the lower right, a white cloth across his hips. He props himself on one elbow, his left arm raised and his finger reaching back, and he looks up with a calm, curious expression. In the narrow gap between the two fingertips the painter has added a soft burst of light. Lettered above in brown: “So God created man in his own image”, with Genesis 1:27 beneath.

What does it mean to be made in God's image?

Genesis 1 builds day by day toward this verse, and here the prose tightens into a three-line poem: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The Hebrew word adam here means humankind, not only one man, which is why the line ends by naming both male and female.

In the ancient Near East, kings set up statues of themselves to mark the lands they ruled. Genesis gives that role to every human being. Each person is a living image of God in the world, entrusted with care of the earth and possessing a dignity no one can take away. Jewish and Christian teaching on the worth of every life, from the smallest child to the oldest neighbor, starts from this verse.

Michelangelo painted his Creation of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling around 1511, as part of a series on Genesis commissioned by Pope Julius II. His great idea was the gap: life has not yet passed from God to Adam. By giving the Creator features close to those of Christ, this watercolor also recalls the opening of John's Gospel, where all things are made through the Word.

In a study, a classroom or a church

A pastor's study, a parish office or a Christian school is a fitting place for a print that invites conversation about human dignity and creation. Teachers use the image to introduce the first chapter of the Bible in Sunday school.

Art lovers appreciate it as a gentle homage to the Renaissance, and it looks at home in a library, an office or above a desk, especially framed in black or antique gold.