polity holy roman empireconcept:era early modern
Adam and Eve
Engraving (1504) by Albrecht Dürer, depicting the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Dürer's attempt to synthesize ideal human proportion derived from classical models with Northern printmaking precision. Multiple impressions; MFA Boston holds a key impression.
Scholarly Significance
Dürer's most ambitious and theoretically grounded print — his attempt to define ideal human proportion through classical Apollo and Venus types.
Notes
- ·Dürer modeled Adam on the Apollo Belvedere and Eve on classical Venus types he encountered in Italy (1494–1495, 1505).
- ·The four animals in the foreground — cat, rabbit, ox, and elk — represent the four humors (sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric) still in balance before the Fall.
- ·The parrot on the branch left of Eve may symbolize the Tree of Knowledge or her deception.
- ·Signed on a cartouche hanging from the ash tree: 'ALBERTUS DURER NORICUS FACIEBAT 1504.'
- ·This print marks Dürer's most explicit attempt to apply Italian Renaissance proportional theory to Northern printmaking.