The Creation of Eve

Adam sleeps against a dead tree, and Eve rises from beside him with her hands joined, bowing toward God. This quiet scene sits at the exact middle of the Sistine Chapel's biblical stories.

The story behind the painting

The Creation of Eve is a fresco by Michelangelo, about 170 by 260 cm, painted around 1511 on the Sistine Chapel ceiling commissioned by Pope Julius II. The vault was painted in two halves, because the scaffolding covered only half the chapel and had to be taken down and rebuilt. This was the first scene painted after the rebuilding, probably in autumn 1511. From here the number of working days per scene dropped sharply, from twelve or thirteen to only four, which helps explain how the second half was finished in barely a year, under the Pope's constant pressure. The ceiling was unveiled on 31 October 1512.

What to look for

Adam lies in the lower left corner on a diagonal, leaning on a dry tree. Eve rises almost at right angles to him, drawn up by an eloquent gesture of God, who stands in front of her wrapped in a large violet cloak. Here, unlike the other scenes, God is not in the sky. Eve emerges with her hands joined, and the heads of the three figures line up on one diagonal. The landscape is spare: a strip of sea, a pale blue sky, green grass, a slope of rocks. God's blond hair and beard are unusual, as he is grey elsewhere. Small changes were found around Adam's head, the tree's branches and Eve's hair and body.

Meaning and intent

Eve's central place can be read through the Christian habit of seeing Old Testament scenes as foreshadowing the New. Eve was often taken as a symbol of Mary, who in turn stood for the Church, so Eve drawn from Adam's side mirrored the Church born from the wound in the side of Christ. The chapel is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. Condivi wrote that Eve seemed to thank God while he blessed her. Because Eve is shown before her own creation is complete, some have wondered if she might be Lilith instead.

Legacy

Vasari described the two figures vividly: Adam inert and held by sleep, Eve full of life and awake to the divine blessing. The figure of God recalls the monumental, heroic weight of Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel and Giotto in the Peruzzi Chapel. The closest model is Jacopo della Quercia's relief on the Porta Magna of San Petronio in Bologna, which Michelangelo had studied and probably saw again in 1511, where the three figures take very similar poses. Scholars also note links with the mosaics of Saint Paul Outside the Walls and the Malermi Bible of 1491.