Giclée on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed and numbered on the back.

images.

I was at a party and was discussing various religions with a lady, and when it came to the downfall, I jokingly said “if only Eve hadn’t offered Adam the apple, we would all be in Paradise”. The woman then looked at me, smiled and said, “who says it was an apple? The fruit has never really been identified; it's just described as the 'fruit of the tree'. Also, there is no indication of what kind of tree she got it from”.

She went on to say that it seems that the confusion was due to John Milton, who named the fruit, an apple, in his novel ‘Paradise Lost’, as a pun. In the Latin translation of the Bible, the Latin word ‘evil’, in the tree's name, is ‘mali’. The word ‘apple’ is ‘mala’ or ‘malum’. Milton made use of this similarity.

She went on to say that many people believe it was either a pomegranate or a pear. Having a love of Nashi pears, which are sometimes referred to as apple pears, I made the decision that I wanted to create an image to clarify the debate. If the fruit wasn’t an apple, then I would prefer it to be a pear.

Besides the apple and 'Pear' text, there is also the history of the pear, as well as a cross, embedded in the background, to reflect the religious element.