The Sin - Franz Von Stuck

Franz Von Stuck (1863 - 1928) was a German symbolist painter, sculptor, and engraver.  His works focused mainly on the use of female nudes to express serious and immediate danger of the subject and viewer.  The Symbolist movement or symbolism peaked in Europe between 1886 and 1900, and unlike realism, which was concern with the ordinary: the working class, and gritty street life, symbolism seeks to express greater emotion and states of the mind.  In The Sin (circa 1893),  von Stuck displays a temptress; a semi-nude female with her face slightly hidden by shadow, embraced by a serpent whose head is positioned to strike and her upper nude body glows with a desire. The use of the snake clearly points to the fall of eden when the serpent tempts Eve to eat from the tree of wisdom, and with her face slightly darken tends to symbolize an importance of body instead of mind.  Franz von Stuck crafts the emotion of lust, desire with foreboding. The Sin visually informs the viewer that her body comes with a payment of one's mortality. 

The Sin circa 1893