South German School, ca. 1520-30.

South German School, ca. 1520-30.
"Expulsion from Paradise."
Relief in marble.
With the inscription in German: "The fall into sin of the first men transforms the world into a vale of tears" (Genesis).
Metal frame.
Measurements: 34 x 26 cm (marble); 38 x 30,5 x 6 cm (frame).

This small marble relief, from the Germanic school, is a singular manifestation of late Gothic religious art that still survives, although already in transition towards the incipient forms of the Nordic Renaissance. Exquisitely carved, the relief represents the scene of the Original Sin in which the Archangel Michael expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, one of the most powerfully narrative episodes of the Christian imagination. The composition, tight to the available surface, dispenses with the landscape representation of Eden in favor of a dense arrangement of figures that occupy almost the entire visual field, denoting an interest in existential dramaturgy. This iconographic condensation is characteristic of the southern German art of the first half of the 16th century, in which the expressiveness of the body and gesture prevails over the full Renaissance compositional decorum.

Eve is shown facing us, in a pose that is simultaneously demure and sensual: she covers her pubis with one hand while crossing her legs, a gesture that insinuates modesty, but also accentuates the volumetric modeling of her figure. Her rounded breasts and the slight prominence of her belly refer to an ideal of fertility that is not yet the Renaissance classicist one, but a more earthly, almost medieval one. This Eve is more reminiscent of the representations of the female body that were still maintained in late Gothic Swabian or Bavarian sculpture. Adam, represented with his back to the viewer, exhibits turned buttocks and capped hair that evoke typologies typical of Germanic art: he does not respond to the heroic and formalist canon of the Italian Renaissance, but to a more domestic, even naive, beauty that reminds us of Hans Leinberger's male figures. The angel, on the other hand, introduces a visual and moral break in the scene: winged like an archangel, he wields a sword with an admonitory gesture and wears a tunic that contrasts with the nudity of the other figures. The meticulously carved wings, defining each feather individually, are a direct legacy of late Gothic detailing, where the ornamental served the pathos of the story. The technique of high relief is employed here with remarkable skill, allowing for dramatic depth despite the small dimensions of the whole. Although small, the relief does not forgo emotional impact, and in this it bears kinship with other works of the period, such as the Bavarian devotional marbles that still maintained links to the workshop of Veit Stoss.

Compared to contemporary northern Italian art, the present relief is less concerned with idealized proportion and perspective, and more focused on the moral expressiveness of gesture and corporeality. The work offers a vivid testimony to the artistic and spiritual transition of an era in which the Reformation, popular devotional sensibility and the first echoes of the Renaissance coexisted in tension and constant dialogue.