1. Creation of Man.
Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, he opens his eyes to the face of Christ. Like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less the representation of a past fact than of a constant one. It is the continual state of man, 'of the earth,' yet seeing God.
Christ holds the book of His Law—the 'Law of life'—in His left hand.
The trees of the garden above are,—central above Christ, palm (immortal life); above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the Food of Life.
As decorative sculpture, these trees are especially to be noticed, with those in the two next subjects, and the Noah's vine as differing in treatment from Giotto's foliage, of which perfect examples are seen in 16 and 17. Giotto's branches are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and every mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. The leaves of these first, on the contrary, are arranged with careful concealment of their ornamental system, so as to look inartificial. This is done so studiously as to become, by excess, a little unnatural!—Nature herself is more decorative and formal in grouping. But the occult design is very noble, and every leaf modulated with loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean forgetfulness of main subject, but in tender completion and harmony with it.
Look at the subdivisions of the palm leaves with your magnifying glass. The others are less finished in this than in the next subject. Man himself incomplete, the leaves that are created with him, for his life, must not be so.
(Are not his fingers yet short; growing?)
2. Creation of Woman.
Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace. The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers and sins, before he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not lost, the quiet naturalness of this head and breast of Eve, and the bending grace of the submissive rendering of soul and body to perpetual guidance by the hand of Christ—(grasping the arm, note, for full support)—would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in beauty, as in mythic truth.
The line of her body joins with that of the serpent-ivy round the tree trunk above her: a double myth—of her fall, and her support afterwards by her husband's strength. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The fruit of the tree—double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy equality.