Image Details

Murder. Still bearing his cudgel, Cain glares at the lifeless form of Abel in The Death of Abel by the French illustrator Gustave Doré (1832?–1883). In Doré’s vision, nature itself seems to react with horror: Lightning rends a cloudy sky; twisted shrubs on the hillside appear to recoil from Cain; and a snake recalling the serpent in the Garden of Eden, slithers to the left of Cain’s feet.