Food & Drink

Enjoyed the world overExperience: Normandy, France

All about the apple

Specialities:

Apple Cider and Apple Brandy

Calvados from Calvados

Moules à la Normande – Normandy-style mussels with apples, cream, and cheese

Bourdelots – Whole apple in pastry

Tarte Normande – filled with apples, sliced almonds and sugar topped with creamy egg custard tart and baked until the topping is slightly caramelised.

Food & Drink

Food & Drink

Food & Drink

Symbolism of the Apple in art

The apple is foremost the symbol of 'original sin' or the fall of man.

Basically, in Genesis God forbade Adam and Even to eat from the tree of knowledge but a serpent came along and tempted them to eat one.

When Eve ate one it was interpreted as symbolizing temptation, both sexually and earthly/spiritually.

From that point on man was 'cursed' with shame so they could no longer be naked.

Eve's curse was that women will endure pain in childbirth.

The snake’s curse was to forever move on his belly like a snake, go figure!

Symbolism of the Apple in art

Fall and Expulsion of Adam & Eve - Michelangelo

Symbolism in art

Adam and Eve - Albrecht Durer

Symbolism in art

The Fall of Adam – Hugo van der Goes

Symbolism in art

Virgin and Child – Lucas Cranach the Elder

When Christ is shown holding an apple it represents his future role as Christ the Redeemer.

Possibly because it is reminiscent of holding the world in his hand.

Symbolism in art

The fall of man – M C Escher

Symbolism in art

The Temptation – Adam and Eve – Marc Chagall

Symbolism in art

The Son of Man – Rene Margritte

Again, religious connotations, here with an ordinary looking guy.

A play on the theme of Christ the Redeemer and the son of man.

Symbolism in art

Apples and Oranges – Paul Cezanne

Symbolism in art

Apple Tree - Gustav Klimt

Symbolism in art

Basically the apple is a catholic symbol used throughout history as a symbol of sin and redemption.

Man is fundamentally a sinful being (according to Christian doctrine) and it is Christ who can take that sin away.  

One needn’t be Christian or believe in Christian doctrine to appreciate the apple in art.

Without getting too in depth, this subject can and has filled many books, but it has been used time and time again by mostly renaissance artists who interwove classical stories and allegories into their work in the case of the apple.

The Greek hero Heracles, as a part of his Twelve Labours, was required to travel to the Garden of the Hesperides and pick the golden apples off the Tree of Life growing at its centre.

Apples in Language

• Adam’s apple

• An apple a day keeps the doctor away

• How do you like them apples?

• Don’t upset the apple cart

• One bad apple spoils the bunch

• The apple does not fall far from the tree

• A bad tree does not yield good apples

• There's small choice in rotten apples

• Your neighbour's apples are the sweetest

The Poison Apple

The Poison Apple

One Final Thought…

Ethnobotanical scholars R. Gordon Wasson, Carl Ruck, and Clark Heinrich believe that the mythological apple is a symbolic substitution for the Amanita muscaria mushroom.

Its association with knowledge is an allusion to the revelatory states described by some shamans and users of psychedelic mushrooms.