They are without the tinsel and gold embroidery used by earlier artists to represent celestial glory.

The simple and solemn lines of the landscape showing the curved surface of the globe give a cosmic character to the scene, and the beautiful indigo blue of the distance forms a fine background for the supremely modelled flesh.

This composition is the first in the order of execution in which Michael Angelo fully realised his scheme of decoration, as to scale and form, making a few figures fill the space allotted to them with ease and freedom of movement.
Truly the space occupied appears to have been arranged and cut specially to suit the figures, and not the figures made, as was the fact, to fit the space.

The next compartment, the creation of Eve, is only less beautiful than that of the Adam.

It is small, and the space is a little crowded: the composition is taken exactly from the beautiful bas-relief by Jacopo della Quercia at Bologna.