Death of Cain

The same awareness rises to symbolic value and is purified under the sign of suffering in this, the most sublime of the episodes of Wiligelmo's "Stories". The mask of Cain individualises the "type" of which it is an example, giving each typological feature (the sharp nose, the prominent cheekbones, the drooping eyelids, the thick lips) a precise psychological and dramatic meaning. For the first time in Italian sculpture the purposes of narration coincide perfectly with those of artistic abstraction.