Spring

Poussin was in his late sixties when he began this, one of four canvases on the seasons painted between 1660 and 1664 for the young Duc de Richelieu, and among the last things he ever made. By then his hands shook so badly that the work went slowly and painfully, and he had pulled back almost entirely from life in Rome. For spring he reached for the first morning of the world, Adam and Eve in Eden, Eve turning to point out the tree. The light falls low and cool, more dawn than noon. Look for the serpent and you will not find one: Poussin set the scene just before the temptation, so the garden is still whole and the fruit still only pointed at.