The Expulsion from Paradise, from The Small Passion

Description

A winged angel advances on Adam and Eve with a raised sword in The Expulsion from Paradise. The couple turns away from the garden, their exposed bodies contrasting with the angel’s sweeping robes and feathers. The sword stretches across the scene beneath a fruit tree, making the loss of the enclosed garden visible as both a barrier and a command.

Albrecht Dürer’s 1510 woodcut from The Small Passion gives the biblical episode a forceful immediacy. Close-set contours and dark foliage leave little room for escape, while the opposing movements of angel and couple sharpen the confrontation. The scene places human vulnerability at the start of the series, making the later Passion story answer a moment of separation already felt in the bodies and gestures.