Adam and Eve Entertaining the Angel Raphael

John Martin (1789 - 1854)

Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery

1823

This painting is considered one of the greatest English paintings in the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery. The picture is based on Books V to VII of Milton's Paradise Lost. At the far right Adam and Eve receive the angel Raphael who cautions them against disobeying God's command and warns them of Satan's plan to bring about the Fall. The terrain descends dramatically to reveal a panoramic vista of Paradise, a visionary landscape of luxuriant growth. This is nature at its very birth, in a primal state of innocence before its corruption by man. So blissful a scene becomes even more poignant when one recalls that it was conceived at the height of the Industrial Revolution.

• Medium: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 131 x 198.5cm
• ArtFunded in: 1927
• Presented by Ewan Frazer through The Art Fund

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