Adam and Eve Mourning the Death of Abel 1571 - 1581

Curator: Look at this drawing by Michiel Coxie, executed between 1571 and 1581. It's titled *Adam and Eve Mourning the Death of Abel*. Editor: The composition strikes me immediately. It’s a bleak, yet formally balanced scene of grief. Curator: It’s done in charcoal, and possibly other drawing media, on toned paper. You see Adam and Eve here, after the Fall, dealing with the direct consequences of their choices manifested in this familial violence. It speaks to the dawn of labor, the new dynamic between man, woman, and the earth from which they now have to struggle for sustenance. Editor: Absolutely, the use of chiaroscuro, the strong contrast between light and shadow, does a lot of work here, literally highlighting their anguish, isolating them within this harsh landscape. The lines of the figures are quite fluid; what can you say about this? Curator: This piece gives us insights into Coxie’s creative process and contemporary workshop practices. Drawing like these functioned as preparatory studies for larger paintings, essentially a blueprint for composition and figures which then would be transferred onto canvas with assistance of his workshop for completion, reflecting a mass production for different patrons. Editor: That really underscores your focus on process. What's particularly arresting to me is the raw emotion Coxie captures with such relatively simple means. Curator: For example, if you examine the material production of toned paper, this choice isn't simply aesthetic. It served practical purposes such as efficiently providing a mid-tone reducing labor cost or perhaps to mimic appearance of pricier parchment depending the wealth of consumer groups at that time. Editor: That really frames the socio-economic aspects in terms of the value of materials at this moment, even in what we call "art." The texture of the charcoal gives their forms weight, gravity. Curator: Ultimately, viewing "Adam and Eve Mourning the Death of Abel" through a lens of materials allows us to see that drawings during the 16th-century period transcend formal aesthetics that served economic and labor functions of that time. Editor: And it allows us to go deeper into how those materials evoke our response to art as a final, cohesive image. Thanks.