Expulsion of Adam + Eve

The Brancacci Chapel was dedicated to the life of St. Peter, the founder of the Church. The chapel program tells a narrative of spiritual redemption: it begins with the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve's expulsion) and proceeds through the life of St. Peter, emphasizing his suffering, martyrdom, and role as the foundation of the Church. By placing the Expulsion next to scenes of St. Peter, Masaccio (or the theologian designing the program) established a clear theological narrative: humanity's fall from grace can be redeemed through the Church and its sacraments. St. Peter is traditionally understood as a "second Adam"—the figure through whom humanity gains restoration after the first Adam's transgression. This theological pairing was well-known to educated Florentines and would have informed how viewers understood the Expulsion. Santa Maria del Carmine was the principal church of the Dominican order in Florence. The Dominicans were schoolmen and theologians who valued rigorous intellectual thought and the reconciliation of faith with reason. The chapel program reflects Dominican theology: the Fall of Man is presented not as a distant, symbolic event but as a moment of profound human suffering requiring rational understanding and emotional empathy. In the medieval tradition, Adam and Eve were often depicted as stylized, expressionless figures or as symbols of abstract theological concepts. Masolino, Masaccio's colleague, painted the Temptation of Adam and Eve on the opposite wall of the chapel. Masolino's figures are ethereal, decorative, emotionally detached—floating in an undefined space, their faces blank and serene. Masaccio's figures, by contrast, are tormented, vulnerable, and deeply human. This represents a decisive break between medieval and Renaissance conceptions of religious art. Medieval art sought to transcend human emotion and celebrate the eternal and abstract. Renaissance art (as embodied by Masaccio) sought to ground the sacred in human experience, to make biblical narratives immediately relevant and emotionally moving. It is the difference between art as theology and art as empathy. Masaccio did not invent anatomical observation from scratch. He studied classical sculpture (both surviving ancient works and contemporary works by sculptors like Donatello). Eve's pose and form derive from the classical Venus Pudica type (the modest Venus, covering her pubic area but otherwise exposed). Adam's muscular torso shows the influence of Donatello's Crucifix in Santa Croce, a contemporary work by Masaccio's peer. The careful rendering of musculature and bone structure comes from studying classical statuary. However, Masaccio transforms these classical models. His figures are not idealized; they are emotionally specific and psychologically complex. The body becomes a vehicle for expressing internal emotional states.