According to the Bible (Genesis 4:1–16), the first murder in human history was a fratricide between the first-born sons of Adam and Eve. The elder, Cain, was “a tiller of the ground,” while his brother, Abel, was “a keeper of the sheep.” Both made offerings to God, Abel offering up a lamb (the smoking fire from his burnt offering is shown behind the figures). “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very angry. . . . And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him. . . . And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” The story—perhaps most familiar to modern audiences from John Steinbeck’s 1953 novel
East of Eden, but also the subject of poetry and music (Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio
Cain, overo Il primo omicidio of 1707 is but one example[1])—appears in cycles illustrating the Biblical account of the early history of humankind.[2] Two famous fifteenth-century examples are Jacopo della Quercia’s marble reliefs on the façade of San Petronio, Bologna, and Ghiberti’s "Gates of Paradise" for the Baptistry of Florence. The subject also appeared in other contexts. For example, in 1541–44 Titian illustrated with brutal force the story of Cain slaying his brother as one of three canvases to decorate the ceiling of Santo Spirito in Isola (now in the sacristy of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice). The other two canvases of the series show the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Triumph of David over Goliath. In this case the subject carried a Christological significance, since according to Saint Augustine (in the
City of God, XV), “the keeper of sheep foreshadows the shepherd of men (i.e., Christ).”[3] In a woodcut of 1511 Dürer treated the theme (
20.65.3); in the seventeenth century it was depicted with increasing frequency as an isolated subject, not simply because of the moral significance attached to the story but because of the compelling narrative and the potential for depicting a violent action.[4] It was taken up by followers of Caravaggio—for example, Bartolomeo Manfredi (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)—as well as, memorably, by Rubens (Courtauld Institute of Art, London; see fig. 1 above). A painting by Simone Cantarini was the subject of a poem by Giambattista Marino in his celebrated collection,
La Galleria (1675, p. 55), in which the famous poet plays on the senseless act of the first death perpetrated by someone among the first to live.
Mola took his inspiration for the depiction of the two figures from Titian’s famous altarpiece showing the murder of Saint Peter Martyr, formerly in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (destroyed by fire in 1867, but known from painted copies and engravings: see
17.50.16-155); Mola had made a copy of Titian’s altarpiece around 1644 (now in the Galleria Pallavicini, Rome). From that same source he derived the lush landscape setting and billowing clouds that serve as a foil for the figurative action. The picture has been dated to the 1650s on grounds of style. Its early provenance is not known, although on the reverse of the original canvas is the stamp of an early owner (fig. 2).
Keith Christiansen 2019
[1] For a discussion of the popularity of the subject in the eighteenth century and beyond, see Ernesto Livorni, “The First Murder: The Myth of Cain and Abel in Modern Poetry,”
Annali d'Italianistica 25 (
Literature, Religion, and the Sacred, 2007), pp. 409–34.
[2] Christopher R. Marshall, “Oh Brother, What Art Thou? Beauty versus Cruelty in Cain and Abel,”
International Journal of Arts & Sciences 6, no. 2 (2013), pp. 167–76, discusses the theme in Renaissance and Baroque art. For a listing of depictions, see A. Pigler,
Barockthemen, Budapest, 1974, vol. 1, pp. 19–23.
[3] For this interpretation, see Erwin Panofsky,
Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconograhic, New York, 1969, p. 34.
[4] The subject of violence in Baroque painting is discussed by Miguel Falomir, “El desafío artístico: Escorzos inverosímiles y expresiones extremas,”
Las furias: alegoría política y desafío artístico. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2014, pp. 75–123.
