Rhetorical analysis of iconology and form for this week's blog could be made through the different video clips about the global problems (such as "This is America" by Childish Gambino or "Lose Yourself" of Eminem), songs that have a hidden meaning in a text, or something like this. For this task, I decided to choose a painting of a Michelangelo, a famous Italian sculptor, architect, painter of the High Renaissance age. The main reason why choose exactly paintings is that they are such things for which authors are unlimited in their choice of the color, mood, direction, or the way of illustrating their ideas. In truth, most of the famous paintings make me feel uncomfortable, cause they seem to me to be too deep and scary. However, that work which I chose is a very beautiful art with a lot of meaning, open and hidden, as well.
Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" is one part of the Sistine Chapel's work. On the first look we can say that there are illustrated a young man, an old man, children, young women, the rock, something like a coach, but not exactly that, the blue scarf, a white dress on an old man, and someone's hand trying to take (or maybe steal) some green stones or whatever it is. For the first time, it looks simple, an old man reaches out his hand to touch a young man. However, it is possible that the author wanted to illustrate a God in the face of an old man. He is the only one who is wearing clothes. From the title of a fresco, it is clear that the meaning here is about the creation of a first people in the world. If that old man is a God, then a young man is Adam. I think that the author showed the moment of God giving Adam a soul and energy, and may be willing to live. Looking at his face, we see that Adam's look (eyes) is blurred, and face is unemotional. Thus, we expect that the touch of God will breathe into Adam a new life, a soul, and will brighten up his eyes making them full of energy and greatness. Also, from the pose of a God (maybe Zeus or whom Italians believed in (Jupiter?)) we may conclude that Adam is really a creation of that man. God repeats Adam's pose in a mirror image.
In addition to all the above, I want to add one more observation about this painting. It is a woman behind the God. Among the children and God she is the only one young woman, so probably this is an image of Eva. So maybe Michelangelo wanted to show the stage of a creation of people when Adam already existed, and Eva was in his mind. Moreover, looking on the part of a God, it seems that The crowd of all children, woman, and God makes it look like a human brain. Hmm, good food for thought, isn't it?
Paintings like this which were written hundred or thousand years ago, always have some "hidden" details, ideas (p. 12). And most of the time each analytic open that idea differently, depending on what they want to see by themselves. Here, in my blog, I used to analyze the rhetoric in a text (fresco) including iconography and form analysis.