details

Adam and Eve seem to be looking for an exit out of the frame.
Expelled from Heaven, they protected themselves from the angel's sword. Since then, they have fallen on Earth. Although maintained, the gesture is meant to proclaim something else: the price to pay to reach knowledge and humanity is heavy. Nothing is made for radiant joy. They look for a way to leave.
Behind them, a path leads through a frightening forest. On the way in, a shape – half tree, half skinned cat- stands like a malevolent totem- a bare and wobbly atlas. Suddenly in the foreground, a large curve reveals a corpse being digested by dry branches of shrubs as well as a hollow tree that mysterious characters use as a shelter. Raising his hand towards emptiness and smelling the night's air, Bruegel's blind walks in the same direction as Adam and Eve's, whose arms trace out an invisible line from Heaven to the uncertainty of the next step. The light falling from the foliage overwhelms the painting's center, thus becoming a wild-eyed place or a living spring. Hercule and Omphale are embracing. One can find the leitmotiv of the pendulum between life and death launched in the three philosophers' painting. This image of Eros is not as simple as it seems, since in the background a worrying glow has just lighted up.

François Boucher - Hercule and Omphale

Bruegel - La parabole des aveugles.