TATE BRITAIN : ADAM & EVE TEMPTATIONS : EXHIBITION REVIEW

                                        ADAM & EVE TEMPTATIONS 


For this review we had to visit Tate Britain museum which was very interesting because of the different pieces that were on display.My favourite piece from the exhibition was the Adam & Eve painting by William Strang which can be found on display at Tate Britain Theme: BP Walk through British Art Room 1890.
 This is the first in a series of ten paintings on the biblical story of Adam and Eve which I learned about in church as a child in the early stages of my life as a Christian. They were commissioned by the brewer Laurence Hodson as a frieze for his library at Compton Hall, near Wolverhampton


William Strang  was born in February 13, 1859 Dumbarton(Scotland), where he was briefly apprenticed to a shipbuilding firm before moving to London where he lived for the rest of his life.  He went to the Slade School, 1876–80. Under the guidance of Alphonse Legros who was a French painter and printmaker. He was so strongly influenced by Legros, that Strang spent a year as Legros's assistant in the print-making class. Other artists he was influenced by beside legros were Giorgione, Holbein and Goya.

William Strang

During his studies he took up etching which is a printmaking technique that uses chemical action to produce incised lines in a metal printing plate which then hold the applied ink and form the image. It was in this field that he originally made a name for himself. By the mid-1890s he had an international reputation, but from this time he turned increasingly to painting, and after the turn of the century he was regarded more as a painter-etcher than an etcher-painter. He made highly finished portrait drawings as well as paintings and etchings. Strang also painted some rather strange modern allegories, combining ‘real’ and ‘dressed-up’ figures. Strang's paintings included "landscapes in the tradition of Rembrandt, pastoral and French inspired themes which I think influenced this Adam & Eve piece.

In the bible it says Adam and Eve were the first humans made by god in its image they lived in the Garden of Eden. When god made Adam and Eve, he told them that there were many trees in the garden. God said Adam and Eve could eat any fruit in the garden apart from this tree which was the tree of good and evil. If they ate fruit from that tree, they would know what was good and what was bad. They would have to leave the Garden of Eden. If they did not obey his words, so they should choose carefully.One day Satan the snake, the devil, came to the Garden of Eden. He told Eve she should eat the fruit from the tree of good and evil because it would make her wise. Eve said God had told her and Adam not to eat it. Satan managed to convince eve to eat the fruit. After she ate the fruit she told Adam about it and convinced him to eat it also.

The Temptation 1899

I found this piece very interesting because I knew the back story to it.  It shows Adam with his head down facing away in an attempt to resist Eve and Satan (the snake) temptation.