The woman as vamp

Idyllic paradise garden? No, Franz von Stuck's Adam and Eve are standing in front of a pitch-black background. As if on a theater stage, the first human couple act in the foreground on a narrow patch of grass. With a provocative smile, Eve invitingly holds out the apple to Adam. The bright blue snake coils around her naked body. Its head lies in Eve's outstretched hand, the apple is within reach in its mouth - but Adam hesitates.

Strictly speaking, Stuck is not painting the biblical primal couple, but the "temptation". This is personified by the woman. Eve is shown here as a femme fatale, a sensually erotic woman whose supposedly demonic nature is demonstrated by the fact that she casts such a spell over men that they are mercilessly at her mercy. Her red hair, lips, and nipples stand out as striking color accents next to the apple. The role of the woman as seductress is also the central theme of the Symbolist painter Franz von Stuck.