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53
ADAM AND EVE c. 1865
GEORGE
FREDERICK WATTS, O.M., R.A.
1817 - 1904
Adam,
naked except for a strand of foliage, kneels with his head
on his arms, facing left. He almost conceals the naked kneeling
Eve, head in hands, behind him. An indeterminate brown background
at the right may be a tree trunk; distant blue mountains,
or sea to the left.
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53
ADAM AND EVE c. 1865
GEORGE
FREDERICK WATTS, O.M., R.A.
1817 - 1904
Oil
on canvas, 54.6 x 39.4 (21.5 x 15.5)
Provenance: unknown.
Adam,
naked except for a strand of foliage, kneels with his head
on his arms, facing left. He almost conceals the naked kneeling
Eve, head in hands, behind him. An indeterminate brown background
at the right may be a tree trunk; distant blue mountains,
or sea to the left.
The
subject is loosely based on the biblical story of the expulsion
of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, Genesis, III,
8-24.
In
1848 Watts first considered an ambitious scheme, entitled
"The House of Life", which was to comprise a series of vast
murals depicting the symbolic history of the world and mankind.
Although
it was never executed his initial thoughts provided him with
themes for his later sym-bolic and religious paintings including
a number based on the story of the creation and expul-sion
from the Garden of Eden. These include The Denunciation
of Adam and Eve, originally titled After the Transgression,
and The Creation of Eve, both c.1865-8, in the Fogg
Art Gallery, Cambridge, Mass. and the Tate Gallery's Eve Trilogy,
c.1865-97, which he presented in 1897. The
Watts Gallery has oil studies (62.23 x 24.13) for the Fogg
paintings.
The
French Bequest Adam and Eve is related to The Denunciation
of Adam and Eve, described by Watts as "Adam and Eve crouching
at the foot of a tree; above, God the Father, with outstretched
arms in the act of Denunciation, and angels.", and was therefore
probably commenced c.1865. The
extreme scumbling and loose brushstrokes reveal the influence
of the late work of Titian, an artist he greatly admired.
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