The Expulsion from Paradise

1646

Although God forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, they did so anyway. As punishment, they were driven out of Paradise by an angel with a flaming sword. They fled into the barren mountain landscape. Van Poelenburch, after returning to the Netherlands from Italy, produced this type of highly refined, painstakingly painted landscape throughout the rest of his career.