In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. Genesis 1:1,26-27; 2:19-20
In the beginning, God created everything that exists in 6 days, and declared the creation “Good.” After God created Adam, he gave him the task of naming all the animals, but God saw the man had no suitable companion. For the first time, God called it “not good” for Adam to be alone. It was at this time God made Eve and brought her to Adam. The generations that were recorded in the Bible began with this first man, Adam and his wife, Eve. In the Book of Luke, Chapter 3, Luke traces the generations before Jesus all the way back to Adam, the son of God.
In this painting Adam is choosing a name for his fish while Eve peers out of the branches to get a first glimpse of her new husband. All the animals included were the result of people’s votes in the earliest stages of the composition. Some of the animals may be unfamiliar, like the Philippine Tarsier hanging on the moose antler. Other animals are much more familiar, such as the artist’s tuxedo cat Ronnie sitting on Adam's knee.
Adam Naming the Animals received the Award for Excellence at the Museum of Art Florida