"Expulsion From Eden"

Unlike many of Masaccio's other paintings, this fresco focuses not on space and perspective but rather on the emotional weight of the scene. The sense of anguish in the faces and poses of Adam and Eve was innovative for a scene that had always been treated with expressionless gravity in medieval depictions. In contrast to the painting of the Temptation of Adam and Eve, painted in the same chapel by Masolino, Masaccio's painting emphasizes the reality of human agony implicit to the story.

This fresco focuses not on space and perspective but rather on the emotional weight of the scene. The sense of anguish in the faces and poses of Adam and Eve was innovative for a scene that had always been treated with expressionless gravity in medieval depictions. In contrast to the painting of the Temptation of Adam and Eve, painted in the same chapel by Masolino, Masaccio's painting emphasizes the reality of human agony implicit to the story.

The novel expression of emotion in this painting made it hugely influential during the Renaissance, even inspiring Michelangelo's depiction of the scene in the Sistine Chapel. The beautiful liveliness  was taken partly from the study of classical sculpture. Eve's pose is the classical Venus Pudica, an unclothed woman shown with her hands covering her private parts, whilst Adam's torso may well have been inspired by the famous Apollo Belvedere statue in the Vatican.

The painting demonstrates Masaccio's involvement in the new humanist movement in Florence which valued the study of ancient artists and philosophers. This painting has continued to be of interest to artists up to the present day.