REHBERG, Friedrich
(b. 1758, Hannover, d. 1835, München)

Cain (detail)

1791-95
Oil on canvas
Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao

The figure of Cain is the main focus of attention, while the landscape in the background - showing his murdered brother Abel and their parents Adam and Eve - is the ideal setting for the human being, considered during Neoclassicism as the centre of the universe. A pictorial vindication of primeval justice is dramatized in the work by the bolt of divine lightning shredding the sky.




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