Wednesday 30 December 2015

PICK YOUR OWN FRUIT

It's quite often an apple...

The fruit chosen to depict the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden is now habitually referred to as having been an apple, although the First Book of Moses, Genesis, does not specify what kind of fruit grew on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil –– other than the Knowledge of Good and Evil!

One guess is that the choice of the apple by generations of artists may have originated as a Latin pun: Eve ate the malum (apple) and succumbed to mālum (evil).

On one corner of the Palace Ducal on the Piazzetta San Marco, there is a sculpture of Adam and Eve at the moment of when they gave into the urge to pick and eat...



Adam and Eve's nakedness is decorously concealed by artfully arranged tree branches whose leaves are clearly those not of the apple, but of the fig!



And – apart from the tell-tale leaves – the forbidden fruit for which Eve reaches (encouraged by the human-faced serpent) and is quite clearly a FIG!

Photos: © Brian Sibley& David Weeks 2015

4 comments:

Michael G. said...

Such a prudish sculptor! Weren't they naked, and not aware if it was or was not a sin, before they consumed the fruit?

Chris Sobieniak said...

Interpretations of Adam and Eve over the centuries have always been mixed. You get the prudes who'd do anything to cover up their shame in any way possible, often strategically placed and at times you wonder how does it even stay there at all when it's clearly a leaf that's probably been given a slab of mud on the opposite side before it was stuck onto their pubic areas. Then you get the honest guys who do bother to show it, and Adam is usually stuck with a size too small of a manhood, you wonder why they even bothered in the first place.

Even more amusing is the people who get uptight at the depiction of the two having belly buttons, since technically they should've have any at all, yet many artists tend to forget that while they paint, sculpt or render the figures in any medium possible.
https://www.pinterest.com/sobieniak/adam-eve/

Brian Sibley said...

Great selection of A&Es on Pinterest! Thank you!! :)

Chris Sobieniak said...

Glad to help. Figured an odd little interest I had paid off! It's more amusing to note the hypocritical view of sexuality as well when the Eve's don't get as much 'coverage' as the Adams in these.