File:Creation of mankind - tympanum - west facade - National Cathedral - DC.jpg

English: Ex Nihilo ("Out of Nothing...") , the sculpture in the typanum over the central doors in the west facade of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. It depicts God's creation of mankind (four men, four women) out of nothingness.

The sculpture is 21 feet (6.4 m) wide, 15 feet (4.57 m) high, 28 inches (71 cm) deep, and features eight life-size nudes. It was designed by artist Frederick Hart.

Hart was an apprentice carver at the cathedral, but was going to quit in 1969 because he believed it held no future for him. Then he heard rumors that the Cathedral Building Committee wanted to portray the creation of the universe on the west facade. Furthermore, it was willing to consider nonrepresentational, avant-garde designs. For three years, Hart drew plans which would unite the whole west facade together. He was deeply influenced by the writings of the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who attempted to reconile science and religion. Out of those writings, he came up with the idea of a whirling, wind-blown, billowing universe.

In 1973, the Cathedral Building Committee asked four sculptors (including Hart) to submit designs for the central tympanum and a figure for the trumeau (central column supporting the typmanum) below it. Hart's original tympanum design (from early 1974) was an almost bare space with a face just beginning to emerge from it. His Adam statue was fairly close to its final form, but nonrepresentational.

The Building Committee rejected Hart's submission, as well as that of the other three artists. Three more sculptors were invited to submit proposals. Hart now submitted, unsolicited, on May 14, 1974, a revised model for the central tympanum, as well as models for the left and right tympana and the figures on the trumeau below them. The central tympanum model was very much like the final form, although the trumeau figure of Adam was more unformed and more caught in the fog and dust from which he was created. Nonetheless, the Building Committee voted that same day to award him the commission. (Sculptor Michael Lantz's submission was considered, but rejected. Hart's submission was considered a third time, this time against fellow Cathedral sculptor Constantine Serfelis' submission. But again Hart was chosen.)

What you see here is Hart's second design from May 1974.

The Building Committee immediately gave its permission for Hart to proceed with the central tympanum and figure. "Ex Nihilo" was actually the last of the three tympanum sculptures on the western facade to be started. Hart slightly reworked the figures (using 25 nude male and female models as guides) to make them more fully formed from the void. He crafted a one-third scale model, and then a full-scale model (both in clay) of "Ex Nihilo" from 1976 to 1979. Once the final design was approved, he made a full-size plaster model from which the carving was made.

Hart also significantly reworked his trumeau figure. His second model was exceptionally lifelike -- a fully formed nude male stepping forth from roiling clouds of unformed matter. The Building Committee felt it was too muscular and embarrassingly indecorous (so homoerotic!) for the front doors. It asked that the roiling cloud be brought higher (to occlude the genitalia) and that the figure be less muscular. A month later, Hart produced a new model that met with the committee's expectations. (The muscular local model Robert Parke modeled for the trumeau figure of Adam.)

Carver Vincent Palumbo sculpted the tympanum, with help from Walter Arnold, Gerald Lynch, and Patrick Plunkett. It took two years to carve it from Indiana limestone. The tympanum was completed on February 10, 1982.