The Creation of Man is the fourth panel in the series of nine which constitutes the central portion of the frescoes; or the sixth in the series reckoned in the order in which it was painted. For, as all the world knows, the series was painted backward. Just why the Drunkenness of Noah was chosen as the subject of the last panel, and then painted first, all the world is still discussing. Disgusted with the conditions of his time, stung by the gibe of his enemies (that a sculptor could not paint), and forced to begin the work against his will, what would have been more natural to a man of Michelangelo's temper, than to have seized upon the Drunkenness of Noah as typical of the day, and to have painted that first, and in the style popular at the moment, to beat his jealous rivals at their own game, and to show them what he thought of the whole wretched situation. However it was, as he worked, his temper seems to have cooled.

Like any other genuine artist he became more interested in the work itself than in anything else, and proceeded to adapt the treatment of his theme to the expanding vision. What a transition in five panels from the orderly confusion of the Flood to the august simplicity of the Creation ! The critics say that Michelangelo saw his mistake in using so many figures of so small a size and therefore simplified his compositions and enlarged his figures as he proceeded. Indeed! Let the critics meditate on the Creation of Light as given in the account Michelangelo was fol- lowing, and then tell us how he might have represented it in the same style with the Drunkenness of Noah.

The Creation of Man, or as it is often called, the Creation of Adam, is reckoned as the masterpiece in this masterly series. In it the artist's genius reaches highwater mark. The composition is a unit; it has not two themes, like the Eden panel, but one, and that sun-clear. In some of the other panels the intention of the artist is not evident at sight. Here misunderstanding is impossible. This superb creature on a hilltop, just coming alive, has no rival in the whole range of painting.

The lines upon which the picture is composed are in themselves of astonishing power. This becomes obvious in a tracing. In the Creator group the curves come into the picture like a rushing mighty wind driving everything before it. The effect of this onset is evident in the Adam group. But the force in the one takes a turn about the head of the Creator and flashes forth on a new path to the fingertip, while the force in the other, just when it seems to have spent itself in the head of Adam, reappears in the feebly outstretched arm and is lost in the drooping hand. The marvel is more marvelous when one realizes that these curves, expressing divine life and human lassitude, both to the very hmits of possibility, are the same ! Like an Athenian vase of the best period, the whole composition is a play upon one line. A single curve, the curve of force, builds the entire design.

Consider that figure of Adam, propped up by one arm, simply because the elbow happened by good luck to fall vertically beneath the shoulder; that knee raised only because the leg happened to be poised (it might fall either way at any moment) ; the body bent by its own weight ; the heavy head and neck sunken within the shoulders; the lifeless hand; the child-like face where a response to the divine is just beginning to manifest itself; no other painter ever charged a human figure with such a burden of meaning.

The figure of the Creator is no less wonderful. Perfectly at rest yet tense with activity, it rides amid its attendants, supported by them yet supporting all. Compare the foot with that of Adam. How living it is ! Compare the Creator's two hands. That upon the shoulder of the cherub is doing something, but its energy is as nothing compared with that outstretched to communicate the electric thrill of life to the newly created body. Compare this life-giving hand with Adam's hand. Notice the difference between the two index fingers; between the two thumbs; between the other fingers; between the two wrists. Here are the two most expressive hands in the world within an inch of each other.

But there is one element in this picture, never mentioned, so far as I know, by any critic; namely, the Spirit of the Creator sent forth in advance to energize the inert body. The record Michelangelo was interpreting read: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul." There is nothing here about the "finger of God," although that is mentioned three times elsewhere in the Bible, and always as the instrument of God's power. The Breath of God is mentioned seven times. It symbolizes the divine life manifesting itself without visible embodiment. The gods so manifested themselves to the Greek heroes. The cloud, always closely associated with the wind, is the natural veil of a heavenly visitor. "Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud," said God to Moses. More than fifty times in the Bible the cloud is spoken of as indicating the divine presence. Michelangelo, a reverent and thorough student of the Scriptures, and a keen thinker as well, knew that before the human spirit could even reach out a hand toward God, the breath of the Almighty must already have given it life. He is the essence that inquires!" as Emerson said. Michelangelo himself wrote:

"For love warms not my heart, nor can I rise, Or ope the doors of Grace, who from the skies Might flood my soul . . .

Rend Thou the veil, dear Lord ! Break Thou that wall . . . Send down Thy promised light to cheer and fall ...

That I with love may blaze, And free from doubt, my heart feel only Thee!"

Therefore in this wonderful panel, the Almighty projects himself as a vast cloud, close to the recumbent body. The Creator's head is repeated line for line in this cloudy shape, even to the eye and the flowing beard; the open mouth is opposite Adam's head, "breathing into his nostrils" the breath of life. In many a reproduction this shadowy form is hardly visible, but in a good reproduction, such as that in Masters in Art, and especially in the original, it is evident. In the diagrams of the entire ceiling decoration, rendered in line, this face is missing. But how empty that part of the composition appears! The panel, without those few lines, is unbalanced, the only unbalanced panel in the series. Add them, as in the tracing reproduced herewith, and the composition is complete. Balance is restored at once. The panel has never been retouched; the silhouette cannot have come by accident. It is there because Michelangelo put it there. It is the supreme proof of the insight of the master into the eternal relations between the human and the divine.

But the orthodox Michelangelo went farther yet. God's foreknowledge had been affirmed by the church fathers for a thousand years. "With God," they said, "knowing and willing are one." Already the helpmeet for Adam existed in the knowledge and purpose of the Creator. Therefore, in this picture, the Creation of Adam, — nay, the larger title is the better, the Creation of Man, — the master has embodied not only this philosophy, but the thought expressed in the original document: " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." The account of the creation of Eve comes in another chapter, and Michelangelo has represented that m another panel. But here, in this panel. Eve already exists, next to the heart of God, the most beautiful of all the heavenly attendants, the most interested of all those who weje present "when the morning stars sang together and all the sons shouted for joy." The Heavenly Father holds her in reserve for Adam, even as at the very moment this picture was being painted He was holding in reserve, as the spiritual mate of this great-hearted, pure-minded, lonely man himself, the lovely Vittoria Colonna. In a sonnet to her Michelangelo said:

"I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found; But far within, where all is holy ground,

My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:

For she was born with God in Paradise."

The Creation of Man is to me the symbol of the rebirth of the soul, when, heavy with the weight of the physical life with which it is asso- ciated, unconscious of its powers, it is awakened by the divine breath. If then it reaches out, never so feebly, it finds what David promised King Saul, in Browning's immortal verse:

"A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

It is to me the symbol of the perpetual relation which exists between the awakened soul and God. On one side the soul, ever conscious of its own weakness, ever re-enforced by the heavenly breath, reaching for- ever, forever craving more of the abounding life; on the other side the loving Father who answers before the human spirit calls, who wills to do for us more than we can ask or think, and of whose purpose it is written, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him."