The creation according to the Bible“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” … “Now the earth was formless and empty” where also “Darkness was over the surface …”. This “beginning” is demonstrated in Fig.1.
Fig.1. Heaven and formless Earth |
“And God said, let there be light, and there was light”. This is demonstrated in Fig.2 by a photo of a multicolor laser beam taken by the scientific photographer Fritz W. Goro (1901-1986).
Fig.2 Light |
“And God made two great lights - the greater light (sun) to govern the day and the lesser light (moon) to govern the night”. These lights are demonstrated in Fig.3 entitled the “Creation of the Sun and Moon” that was painted by Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, one of the most inspired creators in the history of art.
Fig.3. Sun and moon |
And finally “He also made the stars” demonstrated in Fig.4. Fig.4-1 is a photograph taken by W.C.Miller of the Veil Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. M.C.Escher (1898-1972), Dutch, graphic Illustrator and artist painted Fig.4-2 entitled “Stars”. As a surrealist, Escher demonstrates the stars by a three compound octahedra floating in space with two chameleons contained within. Numerous other polyhedra float in the background
Fig.4. Stars |
“Then God said, let the land produce vegetation … and trees on the land that bear fruit … according to their various kinds."
Fig.5. Vegetation and trees (left) and fruits (right) |
“And God said, let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock … and wild animals each according to its kind”.
Fig.6. Different animals |
Figs.5 and 6 painted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (C.1530-1593), an Italian, are interesting artwork demonstrating the above God’s creations. Arcimboldo invented a portrait type consisting of painted animals, flowers, vegetation, fruits, and objects composed to form a human likeness. He was probably the first one who understood the psychology of face reading, namely that something will be recognized as a face independent of what it is composed from provided that the eyes, nose and mouth are placed where we are used to see it. The above style of Arcimboldo is demonstrated in Fig.5, left side, entitled “Winter”
and “Summer” on the right, as well as in Fig.6: left - “Earth” (1568) and right - “Water” where each animal image is composed of about 25 (!) different animals. Fig.7 is a wonderful demonstration of a stepwise evolution from a single cell, to animals and finally to man. Alfred J. Smuskiewicz (1932) who was born in Chicago, Illinois and who has been exploring in his artwork the synthesis of science, religion, nature and history, painted this artwork.
Fig.7. Stepwise evolution |
“Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him … ”. This creation is demonstrated in Fig.9 painted by Michelangelo who emphasized how the Creator extends to Adam his index finger and the small distance between the fingers generates a dramatic sensation of the ignition of the life-giving spark.
Fig.8. “The Creation of Adam “ |
“Male and female he created them” is presented in Fig.9 painted by Fernando Botero (1932), Colombian who paints voluptuous figures.
Fig.9. Adam and Eve |
The creation of the universe according to scienceThere are many definitions to the conception Universe. From our current scientific viewpoint, we define the Universe as all matter and energy, including earth, the galaxies and all therein, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole. Other definitions are: the Universe is all that exists, or the Universe is what we can see from Earth - sometimes called the observable Universe.
At present there are two scientific theories elaborated below that describe the creation of the universe; these are The Big Bang and the Steady State theories. It is interesting to note that a specific scientific definition of creation of the universe on the Web is not available. The reason is probably the two models each of which with its advantages and disadvantages. On the other hand, the following definition is available on the Web by Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia: ”Creationism or creation theology encompasses the belief that human beings, the world and the universe were created by a supreme being or deity. The event itself may be seen as a transformation to order from preexisting chaos. As a matter of fact this definition was demonstrated by art in the previous chapter.
In physical cosmology, the Big Bang model is now a day the accepted model to describe the origin of the universe and it’s beginning. According to this model, “born” in the thirties, the universe began when a single point of matter and energy of infinite density and temperature exploded by its self. This event, defined in physics as singularity is estimated to occur about 13.7 billion years ago and is considered as beginning of time. Since the happening of the Big Bang, the universe is expanding and its temperature is decreasing. During the expansion of the universe galaxies have been formed as well as stars and planets. In recent years it turned out also that the expansion of the universe is even accelerated. The Big bang model is a result of Einstein’s (1879-1955) General Theory of Relativity of 1915 on the basis of which physicists like Roger Penrose and Stephan Hawking indicated that the universe must have started by a singularity. In other word, according to science it is possible to determine that the universe must have a beginning, but it cannot explain why the universe was as it was. To get a better answer, Hawking referred this question to God. An alternative model for the origin of the universe was the Steady State Theory (also known as the Infinite Universe Theory or continuous creation) developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and others. In the steady-state view, new matter is continuously created as the universe expands. The key importance of the steady-state model is that as a competitor to the Big Bang, it was an impetus in generating some of the most important research in astrophysics, much of which ultimately ended up supporting the Big Bang theory. It was Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), an American astronomer born in Marshfield, Missouri that changed our view of the Universe. When he saw a vast universe beyond the Milky Way, it was for him the first hint that it began with the Big Bang at a certain point. More over, in 1929 he showed that galaxies are moving away from us with a speed proportional to their distance. The explanation is simple, but revolutionary: the Universe is expanding. In the following, the above models are demonstrated by art.
Fig.10. Expanding universe |
Fig.10 from Wikepedia is an artistic simulation of an expanding universe separated by “slices” of space at different points in time. Fig.11 entitled “The Big Bang” is a fascinating and precise demonstration of this phenomenon as described above. It has been painted by Alfred J. Smuskiewicz (1932) who was born in Chicago, Illinois and who also painted Fig.7.
Fig.11. “The Big Bang” |
Fig.12 is an additional artistic presentation prepared by the author of this article to demonstrate the creation of man, galaxies and matter from the Big Bang. The latter is simulated by the top artworks 1 to 5. Rene Magritte (1898-1967), Belgium Surrealist painted Fig.1; Salvador Dali (1904-1989), Spanish Surrealist painted Fig.2 where De Es Schwertberger (1942), Austrian Myth and mystery painted Figs.3 and 3’ (below). Fig.5’(below) was found in the Internet at www.harunyahya.com and was modified slightly by the author to demonstrate in Fig.5 the Big Bang in the absence of matter.
Fig.12. Creation of man-Einstein (1’), galaxy (2’) and matter (3’, 4’) from the Big Bang simulated by the artworks 1 to 5 |
In order to demonstrate the creation process two extreme pictures were required, namely the sets 1-1’, 2-2’, 3-3’, 4-4’ and 5-5’ in Fig.12. By applying the morphing technique, the author was able to obtain in each vertical set six artistic stages of the creation process where in principle any number of stages can be generated. In order to demonstrate also the fact that new matter is continuously created as the universe expands, a few modifications were made by the author as presented in the sets 5-5’ and 4-4’ in comparison to 3-3’.
An illusionist view of space is demonstrated by the artwork “Other World” in Fig.13 painted by the Dutch graphic illustrator and artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972). The artwork is a paradox view of three different non-interacting spatial worlds into which one can enter through an open archway on each of the five visible sides of a cube.
Fig.13. Escher’s space
|
click here to read the next part of this article:
Creation of art via the science of Astronomy
|
