The Creation of Adam

The most reproduced image in Western art — and the gap between the fingers is the point. Adam is a heavy, languid nude, energy about to enter him; God rushes in on a cloak of writhing figures, index finger extended, on the verge of contact. The cloak has been convincingly read as a cross-section of the human brain — anatomically accurate down to the pituitary stalk. Whether Michelangelo, a serious student of dissection, meant it as a secret metaphor is still argued.