Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

By 1653 Poussin had lived in Rome for most of 30 years, painting small, deliberate pictures for a handful of French collectors rather than for churches or crowds. This is one of them. The subject comes from John's gospel. Scribes and Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, demanding that he approve her stoning, and instead he bends and writes with his finger in the dust, saying that whoever is without sin should throw the first stone. Poussin builds the scene like architecture, the figures spaced across a shallow stage before heavy classical buildings, every gesture weighed and held apart. The accusers have already begun to turn away. Near the center, on the ground, are the marks his finger has just made.