Adam and Eve lamenting over Abel’s body 1684 - 1760

Gerolamo Brusaferro rendered "Adam and Eve lamenting over Abel’s body" in ink with swift, emotive strokes. Adam's raised arms and upturned gaze, mirroring Eve's supplicating pose, are gestures of profound grief, recurring motifs across epochs. Consider the weeping Madonna, or even figures in classical laments. The open mouth, the hands clasped in sorrow—these are "pathos formulas," echoing through time. Eve’s posture before Abel's lifeless form, a visual echo of countless mourning figures across art history. We find it again and again, yet each iteration carries the weight of its own moment, its own cultural context. Here, the universality of grief transcends the biblical narrative. The raw, visceral emotion etched into their faces is a primal scream against mortality. A lament is not merely a depiction, but a symbolic echo of human suffering, a motif destined to resurface time and again.