Adam Sins
Adam's loss of his godlike perfection manifests visually through his changed posture and compositional placement in the scenes following Eve's Fall. We see this first in Eve Plucking the Fruit and Tempting Adam (see Fig. 20), a two-part scene that completes this multiepisodic version of the Fall. It opens with the Tree of Knowledge in the Deity's usual position, followed by a still retrograde Eve plucking a fig from it. A second scene follows in the same frame that places Eve first, before the fig, and turned toward Adam. About to sin, he stands to the picture's left and is retrograde, a simile for Eve in three of her four previous appearances. Eve, too, appears transformed, for she stands erect, right hand raised, on the privileged side at the picture's right of the scene, and facing Adam. This remarkable scene is the only mosaic in the entire cycle where Eve stands in the active-agent pose of the Creator.[15] The visual syntax asserts Eve's authoritativeness and demonstrates her resemblance to her Creator, but ironically her pose expresses her sin rather than positive traits. She acts out of evil pride—like the fallen angels, she aspires to be like the Creator—and her ambition results in the Fall. She has already eaten, her eyes are open fully, and she is briefly like God, "knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5), just as the Serpent has promised her.[16] Although God later mentions only Adam ("Behold, Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil"; Gen. 3:22), the mosaicists remind us that Eve, too, attained this remarkable state of being.
But while the mosaic illustrates the truth of the Serpent's prediction, it emphasizes a key distinction from the Creator's pose. Eve stands in profile. She will appear in profile in four more of her seven remaining appearances (see Figs. 24–26 and Plate 2), conforming with the Byzantine convention of showing evil beings in profile so as to avoid the dangers of eye contact with the viewer.[17] Eve may have used her godlike authority to tempt Adam, but at this moment the mosaicists wish to prevent her interaction with us.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 1.
Creation cupola, thirteenth century, atrium of San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 2.
The Expulsion and the Labors of Adam and Eve, detail of the
Creation cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 3.
Separation of Light from Darkness, detail of the Creation
cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 4.
Creation of the Heavenly Bodies, detail of the Creation cupola,
San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 5.
Blessing of the Birds and Marine Creatures, detail of
the Creation cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 6.
Animation of Adam, detail of the Creation cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 7.
Creation of Eve, detail of the Creation cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 8.
Fifth Day of Creation, Sixth Day of Creation, Creation of Eve,
and The Fall,
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 9.
Jacopo Torriti, Creation of the Souls of Adam and Eve, c. 1290,
Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 10.
Creation of the Souls of Adam and Eve, Creation of Adam, and
Creation of Eve (with story of Joseph below), Tuscan artists, c.
1270-90, baptistry of San Giovanni, Florence.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 11.
Temptation of Eve, detail of the Creation cupola, San Marco, Venice.
Image has been removed. No rights.
Plate 12.
God in the Act of Creation with His Compass, Holkham Bible
Picture Book, English
Jewish and Christian exegetes repeatedly addressed the question of why Adam sinned. Adam was not deficient from the moment of his creation, nor was he deprived of enlightenment and driven by a proud desire to be "like" his Creator. Adam's sin was explained differently. According to one popular tradition, it was the result of his love for Eve and his loyal desire to remain with her even after her error.[18] The mosaicists here align themselves with two other traditions, first, that Eve seduced Adam with words, and second, that Adam acted out of lust.[19] Eve uses both her hands in this important scene. Her right hand is raised, not because she just gave the fruit to Adam, but—as seen consistently in the visual syntax of these mosaics—to indicate speech. Oddly, at this point of high drama in the story, the Vulgate does not accord a speaking role to Eve. Speech, like the active-agent posture that represents it in the mosaics, is a form of validation for characters in the Old Testament, a privilege rarely accorded to either Adam or Eve. Eve speaks four times, once each in reply to the Serpent and God in Eden, and once each in her postlapsarian role of procreator and name-giver at the births of Cain and Seth, scenes omitted at San Marco, although present in the Cotton Genesis. She never, however, earns the dixit or ait formulas associated with the Creator and Adam.[20] The mosaicists here, by raising Eve's right hand and placing her in a posture of authority, convey that she spoke to Adam to beguile him, an interpretation consistent with God's later punishment of Adam, condemning him "because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife" (Gen. 3:17).
But the image hints at a second explanation for Adam's sin. Eve's left hand gestures downward toward Adam's pudendum, as does the gaze of her profiled head, a head posture not seen in adjacent depictions of her. Similar to God's pointing at Eve's pudendum during her forming, Eve's glance and gesture anticipate the roles that lust and Adam's corporeal nature will now play in human history. And her eyes here have opened to the shame of their nakedness while Adam's eyes have not; she sees and knows what Adam does not.