Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Paradise



Today's picture of the day from Art and the Bible is Lucas Cranach the Elder's Paradise. I enjoyed reading their commentary on the painting and wanted to share it with you. Visit the site at http://www.artbible.info/art/large/506.html
Here is what they had to say about it.



This panel shows a number of tableaux from Genesis.

Background, center: Eve is created out of one of Adam's ribs. On the foreground the two are addressed by God, who often made a stroll through the Garden.

Background, center-right: Eve has Adam take a bite from the forbidden fruit. Suddenly they are ashamed of their nudity, and hide behind a bush. But the archangel finds them and chases them out of the Garden (background left).

One might be tempted to think that Cranach used rubber dolls as models for Adam and Eve, as they don't seem to have any bones.




If you click on the picture to view a larger size of the image, you will see all sorts of interesting things going on in the background. I especially like God's head gazing down out of the cloud.

1 comment:

  1. I love illustrations of The Garden of Eden and Paradise. This one is certainly multi-layered with lots going on in the background.

    ReplyDelete