Painting
The Creation of Adam
Miguel Ángel, 1508-1512
Show the style
Renaissance · chronological order 5
Where to see it
Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums
Vatican City · Vatican City
A fresco of 280 × 570 cm painted by Michelangelo around 1511 at the centre of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, part of the nine-panel Genesis cycle commissioned by Julius II. God the Father, suspended in mid-air among angels, reaches his right hand out towards Adam, newly made and still lying on the ground. Their fingers never meet: the moment stays a millimetre short, for good.