The landscape format of our painting focuses all the action on an immediately recognizable episode from Genesis: the first murder of humanity. The Bible relates in chapter four how jealousy, the deadly sin, managed to push Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve and a cereal farmer, to fratricide when God showed greater satisfaction in the work of his younger son Abel, a shepherd.
The artist here chooses to respect the classic iconographic codes by freezing the action at its peak since Abel is held on the ground. He tries to get up, but too late his brother immobilizes him by means of his right foot and his left hand while the right arm, armed with a club, prepares to deliver the fatal blow. The very great expressiveness of the characters is not the only key element allowing to transcribe all the violence of this episode. The pictorial touch as well as the relatively dark polychromy of the landscape in the background as well as the fabrics in shades of browns - ranging from ochre to a more burgundy shade - tend to confer an atmosphere which is not without recalling, with the play of shadows, the baroque aesthetic inherited from Caravaggio's works.
The semi-nudity of the protagonists is a pretext. They remain dressed in order to protect their dignity, their anatomy being only partially revealed. Enough, however, for the artist to use his knowledge of the human body and his dexterity to transcribe it. Although it is a nudity called "heroic" in painting, the presence of the textile is a reminder of the original sin committed by the parents of the two brothers, since, cast out of paradise, they were condemned by God to cover their fleshly envelope which had become shameful.
The flames in the background give off a lot of smoke. They contribute to the emotion of the painting and can be compared to Rubens' canvas, when he also chose to put all his talent at the service of this representation around 1600.
Dimensions:
- total height: 33 cm
- height at sight: 28 cm
- total width: 45.5 cm
- width at sight: 40 cm
