ENDLESS IS THE CRUMBLING
I was ashamed
and I have never written
I have never believed
that I could ever touch you
small signs announced you
and hid you all at once
outside of myself
whereto shall I step?
only on my torn and bloody
paths,
only in the uncertain, hesitating step
only in the undecided gesture,
only in the forced and fleeting smile
only in trembling, only in whisper
do I feel at home
sad
at the close of the millennium
as in Genesis
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden -- Masaccio
In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Adam and Eve were described as the first people. The common noun “adam” meant “human” or “mankind” in Hebrew and was also the masculine form of “adamah”(ground, earth, clay) and was related to “adom” (red) and “dam” (blood). Kabbalistic works indicate that it was from “adame” (“I should be similar” to God). Eve was named “Hawwah” in Hebrew, meaning "living one" or "source of life." When they were created, they lived in Eden, related to an Aramaic root word meaning "fruitful, well-watered." They willfully violated a divine commandment, were driven from paradise, and established the basis for the present world of suffering and injustice. The first five chapters of “Genesis” maintained that mankind was created in God's image, without specifically mentioning Adam and Eve, but then the creation story was retold: God made Adam from dust and Eve from one of Adam's ribs (although the Hebrew word “tsela” could also mean "side"). Adam described her as "bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh" and called his new partner "woman" (“ishshah”), "for this one was taken from a man" (“ish”). Despite God’s command that they should not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a serpent enticed Eve to do so by assuring her that she would "be like God, knowing good and evil,", and she gave some to Adam to eat. Ashamed, and no longer innocent, they covered their nakedness and tried to deceive God about their disobedience. Adam rationalized that he hid in the garden because of his nakedness, then blamed Eve and implied that God himself was ultimately responsible because he gave her to Adam, and Eve blamed the serpent. God then cursed the serpent, swore that Eve would suffer pain during childbearing and become subject to her husband’s rule, and promised that death would come to Adam (his return to the ground from which he was taken, “for dust you are and to dust you will return"). The couple were then expelled from Eden “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." According to the Qur’an, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in a Heavenly Eden and, as a result, Adam was sent to a mountain peak, al-Safa, and Eve to another, al-Marwah, as God's representatives. In Islamic tradition, Adam wept 40 days until he repented, after which God revealed part of the divine truth, and the reunited in the plain of Arafat, near Mecca. When God ordered the angels to bow to Adam, Iblis (Satan) asked, "Why should I bow to man? I am made of pure fire and he is made of soil" (some Gnostics had earlier made the same point and connected this refusal to Satan’s fall.)
ReplyDeleteTommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone was called “Masaccio”(clumsy or messy Tom) to distinguish him from his collaborator Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini (“Masolino,” little or delicate Tom), who may have been the first artist to paint in oil. Masaccio himself was one of the first to use linear perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as vanishing point in art for the first time and using chiaroscuro (the representation of form through light and color without outlines) for greater realism. In 1424 this "duo preciso e noto" ("well and known duo") were commissioned to execute a cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, but they left the chapel unfinished (it was completed by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s). Most of the frescoes were devoted to the life of St. Peter, but two of them, on either side of the threshold of the chapel space, depicted the temptation and expulsion of Adam and Eve. Masaccio died in 1428 at 26.