Jan van Eyck and Adam's Apple

Abstract

And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. Genesis 3:6Thus after succumbing to the tempting arguments of the serpent did Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and commit the sin that plunged mankind forever into damnation: Adam nos in mortem praecpitat, Eva occidendo obfuit (Fig. 1).1 No other story in the Old Testament has been so many times retold and represented in Christian art. Whereas Adam and Eve were frequently paired with images of the Christ Child and Mary (the New Adam and the New Eve) in various combinations, the depiction of the “Fall” itself from Early Christian art on hardly changed in its essential composition: the original couple were represented either flanking or standing together beside the Tree of Knowledge.2 The tree was represented in a variety of ways and the serpent who tempted Eve assumed a number of forms, ranging from the camel-like beast found in middle-Byzantine Octateuchs, to enchanting salamanders with human heads (behind Eve in Hugo van der Goes's Vienna panel), to the more traditional snakes.3 The garden setting too has been variously fashioned. Van der Goes spangled his verdant setting with floral symbols, Dürer added beasts representing the four Humors of man about to be unleashed to plague him forever, whereas other artists, such as Michelangelo, preferred to show us a barren and sterile landscape of Eden appropriate for the evil act.4