Expulsion of Adam and Eve

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, painted around 1535, shows Pontormo engaging with the primal biblical narrative that had been treated by every major Italian artist from Masaccio onward. Pontormo's version transforms the traditional subject through his intensely personal emotional language, emphasizing the psychological devastation of the first couple's banishment from Paradise. Characteristic of Pontormo's approach, the work displays intense psychological expressiveness, acidic colors, compressed spatial drama, anti-classical tension.

The figures of Adam and Eve are rendered with Pontormo's characteristic combination of Michelangelesque muscularity and emotional vulnerability. His unusual flesh tones and expressive, almost tormented contours convey the shame and anguish of the expulsion.