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Augusto Colombo
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve. 1936, Oil on canvas

1936

About the Item

The sizable painting depicts the expulsion from the Earthly Paradise. Adam and Eve are depicted in the foreground, occupying much of the scene with their mighty physicalities. The man's head is bowed, with an expression of shame and despondency, his left hand covering his groin with fig leaves, while with the other he holds the hand of his companion, who is instead depicted in an attitude of despair, her head tilted back and one hand covering her face. They walk on sharp rocks, while behind them they leave lush meadows and verdant hills; against the sky stands the imperious figure of the cherub holding the "flaming sword, to guard the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24). Signed and dated: "AUGUSTO COLOMBO 1936." "I believe in the artist as a 'necessary' or at least 'useful' man in the history of his time; I do not believe in the freedom of art as hedonistic finalism. My compositions that illustrate heroic events, elemental human passions, and testimonies of religious tradition, respond to this belief of mine of painting aligned and included in the concert of collective passions. My thematic insistence on "pain" is inspired precisely by the idea of "pain" which is in me dominant thought (regardless of the sufficient serenity of my individual life) [...]" "Work, love, war, are concepts so omnipresent in my soul as a man-painter that in comparison with them the grace of a flower, a face, a chromatic harmony, become minor themes in form and content. It is not a trivial preference of subject (which would already be a subject outside of art) but it is about the emotional charge that different subjects know how to generate [...]" In these two writings taken from the author's letters lies the main reason for the choices of the themes of pain fatigue and war, where man becomes a protagonist figure who acts as a conduit for emotional passion. To understand how these are then treated in the pictorial action, we rely on the words Vittorio Beonio Brocchieri uses in the monograph written about the painter "[...] Chromatic relationships, perspective equations, anatomical orthography, chiaroscuro modulations are the philological constants of the pictorial language, on which the artist's creative variable is inserted [...]" Needless to emphasize how the architectural and chromatic composition of this painting is studied in great detail to achieve the desired effect. The angel with the sword placed in the top corner of the painting as well as the poses of the monumental figures are an obvious homage to Masaccio's fresco. Indeed, it is evident to all his biographers how Augustus Columbus was close to the early Renaissance masters in taste and feeling. In Hoepli's 1970 monograph, there are four preparatory sketches for this work, published instead in Brocchieri's text.
  • Creator:
    Augusto Colombo (1902 - 1969, Italian)
  • Creation Year:
    1936
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 90.75 in (230.5 cm)Width: 67.72 in (172 cm)Depth: 2.37 in (6 cm)
  • Medium:
    Oil
  • Period:
    20th Century
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU680313993442
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