Italy xvii--The Gates of Paradise

It's meant to tell a story, to make the story come alive, and it does. You can't not look.

This incredible relief sculpture is a panel from the Gates of Paradise, named such, in awe, by Michelangelo, although Michelangelo had nothing to do with the creation of this "relief" (a three-dimensional sculpture attached to a wall) or any of the others on the very famous Baptistry door at Florence. 

I'm not going to act like I know it all. It took me forever to figure out what on earth is being pictured. The nakedness is typical Renaissance, but there appears to be at least three important central scenes to the drama. For me, the key was the scene in the background, center and far left. Let me try to bring it up. 

Just in case the close-up is too fuzzy, I'll help. There's a man and a woman and an apple and a snake. Voila! Our First Parents, who, lest we forget, believed the lies of that evil serpent twisted round the tree--not just any tree either, the only one they weren't supposed to touch, under penalty of death. You know the story. 

What seems amazing is how slight the image of the moment of the Fall of all mankind appears. It's background really, almost out of the picture, as if Lorenzo Ghiberti, (1378-1455), the sculptor, didn't think it deserved a headline. Me?--I was brought up Calvinist; the fall should be front-and-center. Why does it seem so secondary in the stories of Adam and Eve? I don't know. There must be a reason.

Instead, in the foreground bottom left, vastly more prominent, is that incredible moment our Adam came to life. As you can imagine, through the centuries lots of people who knew of Michaelangelo's admiration for the Gates of Paradise couldn't help but see, in God's hand touching Adam's, a suggestion divine touch on the central panel in ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Is there, right here in the Baptistry door, a prototype? No one knows, but the touch is similar, isn't it?

The center of this panel features God the Father creating Eve from a sleeping Adam, whose head is up on his wrist as if he's trying to breath through a stuffy nose. 

Eve is attended by angels, who gracefully people the entire piece. She appears rising directly from the man who will be her husband. (Were they ever married?) Eve gets primary billing in this panel, even though her taking the apple seems of only slight importance. Why? I don't know.

They all have great hair and therefore look Italian. Eve appears much younger than her napping husband, but then, she was, wasn't she? In Eden, time was likely irrelevant.

On the right of the panel is the expulsion--the sad leave-taking as the hapless pair are tossed from the blessed garden. 

That winged monster is a creature from the fiery beyond--at least I think so, although I've never known such a being myself. He appears to be doing the dirty work, but Eve clutches her garlanded middle and, sadly, must, like Lot's wife, take one last look at how much they'd lost. 

Ten similar panels, each of them holding similar bronze sculptures, each of them 31 1/4 inches square, compose the massive door to the Baptistry. Ghibirti won a contest for his design 600 years ago. Amazing, isn't it? His original reliefs are kept safely indoors now; these panels are beautiful copies. Around them, there's always a crowd.

What's so amazing about Rome is that there's no end to the biblical story telling, but very little Sunday School. The high art of the Renaissance suggests an audience who enjoyed study. Nothing--or so it seemed to me--was dumb-downed. If you want to appreciate the incredible artistry of the Gates of Paradise, yet today, 600 years after they were created, you have to stand there outside the Baptistry, getting jostled by dozens of others with cameras. You have to want to understand, to be willing to spend some time looking closely over the immense detail because what's there on the door is not a series of flannel graphs. 

Lorenzo Ghibirti may have had a reason for placing the stories of Adam and Eve where he did when he designed and created this panel. Real art critics likely have their theories. But it takes some time to determine what's there and why. It demands some study, as so much art does in Rome, because the Gates of Paradise respect the stories they tell as well as the audience they gather.

Here's another. Go ahead--can you guess what Ghibirti might have in mind in this panel? If you ask me, it's not easy. You have to study.

But then, the older I get, the more I can't help thinking the Word of God isn't all that easy either. We just try to do our best with it. Look closely.