Alice C. Linsley
For the past 2 years I have been purchasing books on art history and exploring the paintings based on Biblical stories. Recently, I was stuck by this image of the banishment of Cain and his clan. Do you see what the painter has done?
What aligns with the data of Scripture and what does not?
Is the landscape realistic for the place and time Cain lived? Or has the painter portrayed these refugees as belonging to a period to which they do not belong; rendering an anachronism?
What are your thoughts on the title given to the painting?
What are your thoughts about the different hair colors and skin tones?
Cain flying before Jehovah's Curse (1880)
Painting by Fernand Cormon, Musée d’Orsay, Paris
The French painter Fernand Anne Piestre Cormon (1845 - 1924) had a great influence on the history of painting as the teacher of such illustrious artists as: Emile Bernard, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, George Hendrik Breitner, Thorvald Erichsen, Vincent van Gogh, Charles C.J. Hoffbauer, Thorolf Holmboe, Eugene-Leon Labitte, Georges Le Meilleur, Henri Matisse, Armand Point, Edward Potthast, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The names Cain and Abel come from the Greek Septuagint, a 2,000 year old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, where their names are written as "Kain" and "Abel." In Hebrew, Cain is קין (qayin) and Abel is הבל (havel). Havel means to be empty, in the sense of being empty of substance.
The word קין (qayin, from the root QN) means to acquire or possess something which is why Eve said "I have gotten/acquired (qanah, also from the root QN) a man" (Gen 4:1). For more on the meaning of Cain and Abel, see Jeff Benner's The Untold Story of Cain and Abel.