Anatomical theories
The background figures and shapes discussion by Frank Meshberger took place in what year?
The Creation of Adam
Several hypotheses have been put forward about the meaning of "The Creation of Adam"'s highly original composition, many of them taking Michelangelo's well-documented expertise in human anatomy as their starting point. In 1990, an Anderson, Indiana physician named Frank Lynn Meshberger, M.D. noted in the medical publication the "Journal of the American Medical Association" that the background figures and shapes portrayed behind the figure of God appeared to be an anatomically accurate picture of the human brain. Dr. Meshberger's interpretation has been discussed by Dr. Mark Lee Appler. On close examination, borders in the painting correlate with major sulci of the cerebrum in the inner and outer surface of the brain, the brain stem, the frontal lobe, the basilar artery, the pituitary gland and the optic chiasm. Alternatively, it has been observed that the red cloth around God has the shape of a human uterus (one art historian has called it a "uterine mantle"), and that the scarf hanging out, coloured green, could be a newly cut umbilical cord. "This is an interesting hypothesis that presents the Creation scene as an idealised representation of the physical birth of man. It explains the navel that appears on Adam, which is at first perplexing because he was created, not born of a woman."