夏娃、蛇与死亡

Hans Baldung learned his trade in Albrecht Durer's workshop in Nuremberg, and he came out of it fascinated by one subject above all: death, and the bodies it takes. He painted this small panel around 1510, in a Germany where images of the dance of death and the day of judgement were everywhere. It packs the whole Fall of man into a single knot of figures. Eve holds the apple; a rotting corpse, standing at once for Adam and for Death, grips her by the arm; and the serpent winds down the tree and sinks its teeth into the dead man's hand while its tail loops back toward Eve. Sin, the first parents and mortality are locked together in one grasp, pale flesh against pale flesh in the dark. For a long time nobody knew it was his. It was sold in the 1870s as a Cranach, and only recognised as a Baldung much later.