Apple symbolism; the Forbidden Fruit

Why fruit; Fruits and vegetables are often used purely for decoration. However when a specific fruit is part of a composition in Christian art, it may also have symbolic significance. Like flowers, fruits and vegetables, suggest the cycle of nature. Fruits contain the seeds for the new generation and are general symbols for the ascendance of the harvest, for fertility - and sometimes for earthly desires. Fruits can have the additional dimension of relating to the 12 fruits of the spirit in Christianity. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, patience, modesty, temperance and chastity.

My endeavour is to create a bowl of fruit, of ideal beauty, desirable for a new generation. The epiphany of man is what he eats in the context of the of the 21st century. My aim is to embrace Umberto Echo's expressed views on defining beauty to ensure the product has universal appeal.

He states in his book tilted On Beauty "Our explorer from the future will no longer be able to identify the aesthetic ideal diffused by the mass media of the 20th century and beyond. He will have to surrender before the orgy of tolerance, the total syncretism and the absolute and unstoppable polytheism of beauty (2007)".

Offering an apple - is a declaration of love.

Like the orange, as fertility, the apple blossom is used for brides. Chinese peace and concord. apple blossom ; a symbol of peace and beauty, Celtic; It has magic and chthonic powers; the fruit of the Other world; fertility; marriage, Halloween, an apple festival, is associated with the death of the old year. as the Apple of Hesperides - health and immortality.JC Cooper An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional symbols - page 14.

Apple. Fertility; love; joyousness; knowledge; wisdom; divination; luxury; but also deceitfulness and death. The apple was the forbidden fruit of the Golden Age. As round it represents totality and unity, as opposed to the multiplicity of the pomegranate, and as the fruit of the Tree of Life given my Iduma to the gods. As the Apple of Hesperides, and the fruit of Freya's garden, it symbolizes immortality.

JC Cooper An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional symbols.

Apple in Still Life (detail), Caravaggio 1592.

Apple as forbidden fruit. The apple is mainly associated with Adam and Eve, and the Fall. Traditionally the forbidden fruit on the Tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden was an apple - a botanical impossibility, as apples were not known in the Holland. It may have been an apricot - apple of gold or a fig.The Latin word malum, means both apple and evil, which maybe the origin of the apple symbol. When Adam and Eve are shown with the apple, it is a symbol of disobedience and of original sin, of indulgence in earthly desires and sensual pleasures (see image below).

Adam and Eve with the Apple - their disobedience. (original sin) - of indulgence in earthly desires and sensual pleasures (see image below).

"The dream books of the time tell us the true meaning of their enjoyments; the cherries, strawberries, raspberries and grapes that are offered them, and which they eat with pleasure, are nothing but the godless symbols of sexual lust. Here Bosch paints a striking picture of repressed desires" (De Tolnay B, Hieronymus Bosch; 1966; 204).

H Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights (Detail). 1485 Museo del Prado

H Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights (Detail). 1485 Museo del Prado

"In speech and poetry the breasts of a woman are referred to as apples, e.g. By Fischarrt'.'This meaning is confirmed by psyhoanalysis. See Freud, op. cit. (Vorlesungen), p.168; the breasts... which like the larger hemispheres of the female body are represented by apples, peaches, fruit in general".

However, conversely, when near and or held by Mary of the Christ child, acceptance of man's sins and salvation. Mary is the second Eve and Christ the second Adam - take away original sin and restore man the promise of eternal life. The apple is therefore a symbol of immortality - of the soul. Song of Solomon 2:3 - As the apple tree amongst the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste - an illusion to Christ.

H Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights (Detail). 1485 Museo del Prado

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