What is the meaning of Michelangelo painting God’s bum?

I have visited the Sistine Chapel, but as I stood in the heat and crowds trying to take in the extravagance of the painting (and, of course, failing), I never noticed God’s naked bum. But in the empty, quiet iciness of a gallery in Winchester where I looked at high quality, life-size photos of the pictures I was astonished to see God’s naked bum—and I wondered what point Michelangelo was trying to make by showing God in such a way.

God’s bum is to be seen in the The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Plants, which I learnt from Wikipedia featured on postage stamps of Vatican City in 1994—so the Vatican must feel good about the painting.  God features twice in the picture: on the right a fierce God with a long grey beard, the classic picture of God, is, with the assistance of cherubs, dividing the sun and the moon; the God on the right is flying away to get on with creating plants, and we see only the back of his head, the soles of his feet, and his bare bum showing through a gap in his purple robes. It’s a neat, nicely round bum, perhaps, I conjecture, very attractive to a gay guy.

I know that Popes regularly rejected paintings for problems in picturing Christ that seem very minor to the modern eye. How could it be that they were not completely outraged by Michelangelo showing the naked arse of God? I used Google to try to find if they were. I found many references to the picture, most of which admired the vigour and movement of the painting, but I found only one that suggested any discomfort with the painting:

“God making the plant world is shown from behind and strongly foreshortened as if He were piercing the background of the painting; as dynamic and powerful seems to us today, this position was much criticized in Michelangelo’s day. A representation of the Creator showing us His backside and soles of His feet was considered quite disrespectful; few realized what a magnificent composition Michelangelo had achieved because they were so unfairly shocked such a completely innovative perspective.” http://www.italy-travels.it/en/the-sistine-chapel-in-the-vatican/

“Quite disrespectful” seems very mild. Why didn’t they paint over the painting, require Michelangelo to change it, or imprison or execute Michelangelo?

I wondered if Giorgio Vasari, the father of art history and author of a biography of Michelangelo might provide a clue. He does write about the painting. This first quote is about the whole work in the Sistine Chapel:

“This work has been a veritable beacon to our art, illuminating all painting and the world which had remained in darkness for so any centuries. Indeed, painters no longer care about novelties, inventions, attitudes and draperies, methods of new expression or striking subjects painted in different ways, because this work contains every perfection that can be given. Men are stupefied by the excellence of the figures, the perfection of the foreshortening, the stupendous rotundity of the contours, the grace and slenderness and the charming proportions of the fine nudes showing every perfection; every age, expression and form being represented in varied attitudes, such as sitting, turning, holding festoons of oak-leaves and laurel, the device of Pope Julius, showing that his was a golden age, for Italy had yet to experience her miseries.” http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth213/michelangelo_vasari.html

Then he moves on to the paintings depicting the creation of the world:

“To show the greatness of God and the perfection of art he represents the Dividing of Light from Darkness, showing with love and art the Almighty, self-supported, with extended arms. With fine discretion and ingenuity he then did God making the sun and moon, supported by numerous cherubs, with marvellous foreshortening of the arms and legs. The same scene contains the blessing of the earth and the Creation, God being foreshortened in the act of flying, the figure following you to whatever part of the chapel you turn.”

No mention of his bare bum.

Perhaps, I though, there might be a clue in Genesis:

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”

There isn’t.

What might Michelangelo have meant?

We know that he wasn’t pleased to be obliged to paint the Sistine Chapel when he was more interested in sculpture than painting. Perhaps showing God’s bum was simply a protest, a form of protest used by many moderns.

Another possibility might be Michelangelo celebrating his homosexuality, showing that it was possible to combine erotic excitement with love of God.

I wondered if Michelangelo’s poetry might provide a clue, and I found this poem Celestial love:

NO mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Nor all the shows of beauty shed around
This fair false world her wings to earth have bound:
Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies.
Nay, things that suffer death, quench not the fire
Of deathless spirits; nor eternity
Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare.
Not love but lawless impulse is desire:
That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair
Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.

It’s a lovely but for me confusing poem. Is “thy fair face” God’s face? I’m not sure, but I think so. Then is the “she” in the poem love? I think so, but again I’m not sure. He writes that “lawless impulse is desire,” and maybe that is something to do with the naughtiness of showing God’s bum. What the poem does make clear is that for Michelangelo God and love go together.

I can’t think of another theory apart from these two. Perhaps you can. Somebody somewhere has probably written a PhD thesis on the subject.