and they show how carefully and reverently Michael
Angelo studied the works of his predecessors, Massaccio, Lorenzo Ghiberti,
Donatello, and Jacopo della Quercia.

[Image #27]

THE LIBYAN SIBYL

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_Reproduced by permission from a Photograph by Sig. Anderson, Rome_)

[Image #28]

THE PROPHET JEREMIAH

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)

The first division above the High Altar represents the creation of light.
God separates light from darkness, and brings order out of chaos. In the
second division, one of the larger pictures, God creates the sun and moon;
He passes on and spreads His hand in blessing over a segment of the earth
where the trees and herbs spring forth. In the third, God gathers together
in one place the waters which were under the firmament. In these works
Michael Angelo designed a figure of the Creator that has remained ever
since the only possible pictorial symbol of God the Father. He is like an
old man in appearance and in wisdom, but as alert and powerful as a young
man. The creation of Adam is the central composition of the ceiling. The
Deity, accompanied by six angels, gives life to Adam by the touch of
finger tips. The figure of Adam is the most beautiful in modern art. It
appears to have been inspired by a Greek intaglio. The angels are much
varied in type. They are without the tinsel and gold embroidery used by
earlier artists to represent celestial glory. The simple and solemn lines
of the landscape showing the curved surface of the globe give a cosmic
character to the scene, and the beautiful indigo blue of the distance
forms a fine background for the supremely modelled flesh. This composition
is the first in the order of execution in which Michael Angelo fully
realised his scheme of decoration, as to scale and form, making a few
figures fill the space allotted to them with ease and freedom of movement.
Truly the space occupied appears to have been arranged and cut specially
to suit the figures, and not the figures made, as was the fact, to fit the
space. The next compartment, the creation of Eve, is only less beautiful
than that of the Adam. It is small, and the space is a little crowded: the
composition is taken exactly from the beautiful bas-rel