Art in the Bible An abstract loo at a renaissance perception of the Bible Table of Contents Part 1 The Painting Part

2 A compalation of abstract ideas Part 3 Components of the picture Part 4 A few thesis statements Part 5 The essay Art in the Bible Many percieve this world as completly dichotomus. For many people they w ill go through their whole life thin ing that there is nothing in between blac and white. This may present a formidable situation for many, however, for Michel angelo this was not clear enough. He too the Christian religion that was import ant to him and the society that he lived in and percieved it a way more accousto med to the modern world. He created a sense of greyness in a world that was prev iously percieved as only blac and white. In his depiction of Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden of Eden he sets up a dichotomus world but through subt ile and not so subtile hints he shows the observer that he doesn't percieve the world in this way. He creates this grey world to show the observer that the wor ld is not all really blac and white. The painting is really divided into two separate pictures. One depictng the "good" scene inside the Garden of Eden. The other side depicting the "bad" s cence, outside the garden of Eden. Michelangelo splits the picture li e this so that he can create the dichotomus world on which his painting will be based. Alt hough the whole theme is the non-dichotomusness of the world he must do this so that people will have something to relate to. Once this has been achieved he can continue to paint in the greyness whic joins the good and the evil. The dichot omus world, however, serves a very important purpose in this picture. It sets th e defination of right and wrong. Michelangelo is trying to say that there is not eivil and that there is no good. He nows that this cant be true. However Miche langelo defines a blac and a white, as two very separate and istinct things. He does this by pining the picture in two parts and thus enabiling us to see the d ifference. Once we have seen this very obvious difference we are prepared to loo at they grey. Through the use of placement of objects in the picture Michelangelo is a ble to define both the good and the evil as well as the surrounding grey. The go od side poses an arry of items which are asscociated with the good of the garden . The evil side poses a new set of objects that ore asscociated the the evil and dar ness of the world that we are living in. For example in the good side the t ree of nowledge of good and evil is very bushy and green. The leaves are depict ed as having a life li e splendor andloo as if they are real. These leaves cove r a large proportion of that side of the painting , allmost 1/3. These are impor tain because they denote the life li e quality of the garden or Eden. On the oth

er hand behind Eve sits a dear barren tree. This tree is much smaller but still exists in this apparent world of perfect goodness. The tree has no leaves on, an d loo s quite barren. The tree also has an unintresting charecteristicabout it. Having no branches it loo s quite dar . Tthe shading of the trun of the tree al so depicts this. The brown is o a much deeper shade than of the the tree of now ledge of good and evil. This dar enss than then be ta en to represent the evil or greyness that occurs in the dichotomus world. The tree represents the hardshi ps of people because they sinned. It is part of the "dust to dust ashes to ashes " parable that God told Adam and Eve. There is also evidence of this in the othe r side of the painting too.