Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this
subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of
it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace.
The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers
and sins, before he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not lost,
the quiet naturalness of this head and breast of Eve, and the bending
grace of the submissive rendering of soul and body to perpetual
guidance by the hand of Christ--(_grasping_ the arm, note, for full
support)--would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in beauty, as in
mythic truth.
The line of her body joins with that of the serpent-ivy round the tree
trunk above her: a double myth--of her fall, and her support afterwards
by her husband's strength. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The
fruit of the tree--double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy
equality.
The leaves in this piece are finished with consummate poetical care
and precision. Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to
her husband); the filbert for the two together; the fig, for fruitful
household joy (under thy vine and fig-tree [Footnote: Compare Fors
Clavigera, February, 1877.]--but vine properly the masculine joy); and
the fruit taken by Christ for type of all naturally growing food, in his
own hunger.
Examine with lens the ribbing of these leaves, and the insertion on
their stem of the three laurel leaves on extreme right: and observe that
in all cases the sculptor works the moulding _with_ his own part of the
design; look how he breaks variously deeper into it, beginning from
the foot of Christ, and going up to the left into full depth above the
shoulder.