Reference Image

This work is based on the story of Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. The left screen shows the Garden of Eden, with Eve reaching for the forbidden fruit proffered by the serpent, along with beautiful blossoming poppies and lilies. The right screen is covered with fig leaves and two guinea fowls. However, the work is unusual in that the forbidden fruit is not the traditional apple but a peach, and Eve appears to be an Indian woman. With a father who was Christian, Rôfû was familiar with the European cultures and paintings through his father and Japanese artists who studied in France such as Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, and this was his typical handling of a religious subject matter in a Fauve-like color palette, indeed a unique composition somehow reminiscent of Rousseau and Gauguin. After achieving fame in the Bunten Exhibition two years before, this work was his first entry in an Inten exhibition, and was greeted with mixed reviews. Amidst the controversy that arose, Kaburaki Kiyotaka commented, "a painting with considerable problems," while it also received high praise, "the work that shows the greatest effort" and "substantial power."