The Death of Adam

By placing all three stages of the story within the same background landscape, Piero is abiding by traditional narrative schemes already used by Masaccio in his fresco of the Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel. 

Piero's famous geometry is crucial to the painting's composition. The tree forms a column at the perfect center of the painting, branching out into the clear sky. The monochromatic handling of color and triangular compositions in the groupings of figures give the painting a sense of visual unity. Even though three narrative stages are shown in the painting, Piero managed to make each scene seamlessly fit together in one continuous landscape. The pale and monochromatic palette of this painting, along with the geometrical shapes created by the bodies of figures, influenced several 20th-century artists, particularly Balthus.

he Death of Adam forms part of a large fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross, painted by Piero in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo. He was commissioned to complete the fresco after the artist Bicci di Lorenzo died before finishing the original commission. On the right, an old, dying Adam, the first human created by God, implores his son Seth to visit the archangel Michael to acquire an oil that will prevent his death. In the center of the composition in the far background, we see that Michael instead gives Seth a seed of the Tree of Sin to place in his dying father's mouth in order to save his soul. Eventually, the Tree of Good and Evil would sprout from him, perhaps represented by the large tree in the center of the fresco. On the left, Adam's family bury him.

In medieval times, Adam's death was in many ways seen as the beginning of Christ's story, as it was believed that the wood for the cross that Jesus was crucified on came from the Tree of Good and Evil. The story of the True Cross of Christ, and its rediscovery by the mother of Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great, was particularly important in this period when efforts were being made to unite the Western and Eastern churches.

This Fresco is in Cappella Maggiore in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, Italy