The Serpent and the Tree
Virgil Solis, 1565 · Genesis 3:1
The passage
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Genesis 3:1
About this woodcut
Eve stands at the centre with the fruit already in her hand. The serpent is coiled around the trunk beside her and it has a human head and torso, which is how the sixteenth century almost always drew it. Adam is at the right with his hand out, taking. Around their feet the animals are still peaceful and entirely unbothered.
The animals are the interesting part. Solis fills the bottom of the frame with a rabbit, a stag, a lion, a goat, all going about their business while the thing happens above them. It is the last moment in the Bible when that is true, and putting it in the same frame as the fruit is a deliberate piece of storytelling.
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