The Adoration of the Golden Calf

Follow the dancers’ arms across the foreground. Their hands connect the figures into a moving chain, leading towards the golden animal raised on an altar. Beyond the celebration, a much smaller figure carries the story towards disaster. In the Book of Exodus, Moses has gone up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, the laws given by God. While he is away, the Israelites ask for an image to worship. Aaron melts down golden earrings to make the idol. Moses returns and breaks the tablets in anger. Nicolas Poussin, a French painter working in Rome, made this scene in the 1630s. His interest in ancient sculpture appears in the muscular bodies and the way the figures stretch across the picture like a carved frieze. Look for Aaron’s white clothing near the idol, then for Moses at the upper left. The difference in their scale separates the crowd’s immediate excitement from the returning leader. Hands and gestures let us read actions happening at different distances within one landscape.