dam and Eve are driven out of Paradise. According to Catholic (and Lutheran) doctrine, Adam and Eve
were immortal before the Temptation and Fall. See the page about the Original Sin.
Death is waiting outside.
It's odd that Adam and Eve are naked, when the Bible clearly says,
»Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them«
(Genesis 3,21).
Holbein has inspired the dance of death in Lucerne from 1610. Jakob von Wil also starts
the dance with an angel with a flaming sword driving Adam and Eve out of Paradise,
where they are greeted by Death. Notice the apple in Eve's hand.
The scenes from The Old Testament are not included in the Holbein's dance of death alphabet,
but back in 1524 Holbein had designed an alphabet with themes from The Old Testament cut in metal (picture to the right).
Holbein: Genesis chap. 2 & 3
Holbein: Abraham and the angel
Holbein also produced a series of illustrations for The Old Testament.
When publishing Bibles and Bible picture books, these illustrations were often
complemented with the first four pictures from the dance of death:
Creation, Temptation and Fall,
The Expulsion from Paradise and Life After the Fall.
The picture to the left is from a picture book from 1547 with Holbein's illustrations from The Old Testament — spiffed up with
sundry Bible quotes and didactic poems.
A little later in the same book there's a picture of the angel of the Lord preventing
Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. This angel looks like the
angel that chases Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.
Variations: Aldegrever, as he is wont to, makes a free interpretation,
and Eberhard Kieser copies Aldegrever.
Birckmann reduces the angel, takes the sword sheath away from the angel, lets Death use a bow for his instrument, designs a deer
behind Adam and a goat at the frame of the picture.
Hollar and Deuchar follow Birckmann, but Valvasor doesn't.
dam and Eve are driven out of Paradise. According to Catholic (and Lutheran) doctrine, Adam and Eve
were immortal before the Temptation and Fall. See the page about the Original Sin.
Death is waiting outside.
It's odd that Adam and Eve are naked, when the Bible clearly says,
»Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them«
(Genesis 3,21).
Dances of death
Holbein