Our latest Apple Story considers different artistic interpretations of the biblical narrative of Eve and the Apple in the Garden of Eden.
The painting ‘Eve Tempted’ is part of ‘The Eve Trilogy’ by British Symbolist artist George Frederick Watts who died on 1st July 1904. In these three paintings in the Tate’s collection, Watts deepened consideration of Eve’s role in picking the apple, changing the traditional narrative.
They are an important part of an artistic journey that shows Eve as mother earth, temptress, innocent go-between, transgressor and more recently, feminist. As well as ‘Eve Tempted’, the story includes a painting from the Mauritshuis in The Hague that is a collaboration between Rubens and Breughel, a Durer engraving in the collection of The MET in New York, and sculptures by contemporary artists Claire Partington and Siobhan Hapaska.
New Commission: Purgatory Plucked
The story is accompanied by a new musical composition ‘Purgatory Plucked’ commissioned by Apples & People, in which musician Hilary Norris (organist, harpsichordist, composer, and choral director) sets together two old texts about Adam and Eve into a short choral work.
Yosuke Amemiya and the search for the Universal Apple
Home, JournalYosuke made his first melted apple in 2004, life-sized highly realistic yet distorted fruit that blur the distinction between reality and fiction. His melted apple sculptures are intended to deceive the viewer’s eye.
Inspired by Pissarro: Spring Summer Autumn Winter
Home, JournalApples & People have commissioned artist Richard Gilbert to produce a sequence of paintings as a contemporary response from Herefordshire’s countryside to Pissarro’s work.
Painting apples with Elisabeth Dowle
Home, JournalElisabeth Dowle is one of the world’s most respected painters of fruit and flowers, producing detailed and accurate studies. Although she studied at Croydon College of Art she says that she is largely a self-taught botanical artist.