Abel mourned by his parents

Painters almost always show Adam and Eve young and unblemished, as they were in Eden. Liss ages them. Here they are an old, work-worn couple bent over the body of their son Abel, the first human being ever to die, killed by his brother Cain, whom you can just make out fleeing into the distance. This is the first death and the first grief, and Liss gives it to two people who look as if a lifetime of labour is already behind them. Around them the sun is going down, throwing red and gold across the sky, and two tall poplars bend in the wind above the barren hill where the body lies. It is the kind of picture only a northern painter would make, lingering over every wrinkle in the faces and the cloth.