Adam and Eve (Dürer) facts for kids
Adam and Eve is the name of two famous artworks by Albrecht Dürer. He was a German artist from the Northern Renaissance. One is an engraving made in 1504. The other is a pair of oil paintings finished in 1507.
The engraving from 1504 shows Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Several symbolic animals are around them. This famous engraving changed how Adam and Eve were often shown in art.
The 1507 paintings gave Dürer another chance to show the perfect human body. He painted them in Nuremberg after returning from Venice. The paintings were influenced by Italian art. Dürer's second trip to Italy gave him new ways to paint people. Here, he painted the figures life-sized. These were the first full-sized paintings of the human body in German art.
Contents
Dürer's Adam and Eve Engraving (1504)
Why Dürer Created This Engraving
Dürer always wanted to make his art perfect. To do this, he traveled to Italy. He wanted to study the Italian Renaissance masters. He aimed to use their techniques in his own art. His first trip was in 1494. There, he studied great artists like Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna.
One artwork that really caught his eye was The Birth of Venus (around 1484–1486) by Sandro Botticelli. He was also inspired by two old Greek sculptures. These sculptures showed the ideal male and female beauty. They were the Apollo Belvedere and the Medici Venus. Dürer probably saw copies or drawings of these sculptures. He might have seen the print of Apollo and Diana (around 1503) by Jacopo de' Barbari. This image showed Apollo in a classic Italian Renaissance pose called contrapposto. This pose later inspired Dürer's painting of Adam.
Similarly, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus showed the goddess Venus. Her figure was a model for Dürer's later pictures of Eve. Full of new ideas, Dürer went back to Nuremberg. In 1504, he created his famous Adam and Eve engraving. He used a tool called a burin on a copper plate.
What the Engraving Shows
The engraving shows an ideal Adam and Eve before the Fall of Man. Both Adam and Eve are shown with perfect body shapes. This engraving was one of the first to focus on human physical beauty. Before this, art often showed sin. Dürer's new view inspired many later artists.
Adam and Eve were the first man and woman made by God. So, they were perfect characters to show the ideal human body. Both figures are shown without clothes. They are posed in the Italian contrapposto style. Dürer used amazing skill with engraved lines. He played with light and dark shadows, called chiaroscuro. This made the muscles of each body look real. Following old traditions, Adam looks lean and strong. Eve's body is softer and more rounded.
The background is also very important. Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden. Since this picture is from before the Fall, everything is in perfect balance. For example, between them is a mountain ash tree. This is the Tree of Knowledge. But here, it looks like a mix of trees because its fruit is an apple. Eve also holds a broken branch with fig leaves. Dürer included fig leaves to hint at the shame Adam and Eve would feel after the Fall. The Bible says in Genesis 3:7: "And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."
Eve holds the Forbidden Fruit in her left hand. In Latin, "left" is "sinister," which can mean evil. The parrot can mean different things. It can stand for wisdom, the Word of God, Christ, eternal life, or paradise. It might also refer to the New World. At this time, Europeans were exploring and settling the Americas. Some people thought paradise could be found there. So, things from the New World became symbols of paradise in art. This could be why the parrot is here. Dürer's diaries show he saw and collected exotic items. He found them on trips to Venice and Brussels. These included a large fishbone and porcelain dishes from China. Other items like silk cloths, feathers, and an ivory salt-cellar came from "Calicut." This was a general term in the Renaissance for India, Africa, or the Americas. This shows how people misunderstood the wider world back then.
A small sign, called a cartellino in Italian, hangs from a branch. It is written in Latin. It says "Albert Dürer noricvs faciebat 1504." This means "Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg was making [this] 1504." Dürer loved Italian art. But this sign shows he was proud of his German background. He clearly named his hometown, Nuremberg. Also, Dürer subtly showed that his work would last forever. The sign hangs from a branch on the Tree of Life.
At Adam and Eve's feet are four animals. They stand for the four humors or temperaments. These were old ideas about different personality types. The cat shows the choleric humor (easily angered). The rabbit shows the sanguine temperament (cheerful). The ox shows the phlegmatic humor (calm). The elk shows the melancholic temperament (sad or thoughtful). People at the time believed that an imbalance of body fluids caused these humors. But in Eden, everything is in perfect balance. So, the body fluids must be balanced too. The animals show this balance. The cat is not chasing the mouse. The ox is sitting calmly. This perfect harmony would be lost after the Fall. The mouse and cat near their feet also show a link to Adam and Eve.
Where the Engraving Is Now
Many copies of the Adam and Eve print were made during Dürer's life. So, many prints survive today in different collections. Copies were also made in Florence, Italy, now at the Uffizi. Another was made in Mainz, Germany during the time of Napoleon. Today, copies are at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Others are at The Art Institute of Chicago and The British Museum in London. You can also find them at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Yale University Art Gallery.
Dürer's Adam and Eve Oil Paintings (1507)
Why Dürer Painted Them
After making the 1504 engraving, Dürer painted Adam and Eve again. This was after his second trip to Italy. He spent most of his time in Venice. He wanted to study Italian Renaissance paintings more. For two years, from 1505 to 1507, Dürer studied many techniques and famous artworks. He improved his use of the classical Italian contrapposto pose.
He returned to Nuremberg with new skills and knowledge. In 1507, Dürer painted what is thought to be the first life-sized painting of the human body in German art. These were the Adam and Eve paintings. He used oil on wood. Each panel is about 209 x 81 cm.
What the Paintings Show
Dürer believed that to paint the perfect human form, you needed a precise math system. This system used proportions. In his oil painting of Adam and Eve, Dürer changed Eve's body proportions. In the engraving, her head was 1 part to 7.4 parts of her body. In the painting, it was 1 part to 8.2 parts. This made Eve's body look longer and lighter. This light, floating look was common in Gothic art. This shows a change in style from the classical poses in the engraving.
You can also see this in how Eve's legs are placed. They are crossed, one directly behind the other. In the engraving, they stand side-by-side, looking more grounded. This new way of showing Eve became a model for many later paintings of female figures. Adam's figure, however, still uses the contrapposto pose. He still looks like the classical statues of Apollo. Both figures in the paintings look more neutral in gender than in the 1504 engraving. This is probably because Dürer returned to a more Gothic style.
Lighting is also used to make the figures stand out. Adam is bathed in warm light. Eve is in cool, almost silvery light. The colors used are subtle. Light and dark shadows are used to reduce strong contrasts. This gives the painting a soft look. This is different from the 1504 engraving. Because of the material, the engraving has sharp lines and high contrast. In the oil painting, Adam holds a tree branch. It represents the mountain ash, which symbolizes the Tree of Life. This is like the branch in the engraving. Eve rests her hand above a branch. A small sign, a cartellino, hangs from it. It has Latin writing that says, "Albertus durer alemanus faciebat post virginis partum 1507." This means "Albrecht Dürer, upper German, made this 1507 years after the Virgin's offspring."
The oil painting has two separate rectangular panels. One shows Adam, and the other shows Eve. Having separate panels means the two figures are independent. This is unlike the engraving, where they are together. The 1504 engraving tells the story of the Fall of Man. But the oil painting focuses mainly on Adam and Eve as individual figures. This is clear because there is no detailed background or many symbols. We don't know why Dürer chose to paint Adam and Eve separately. But it was one of the first artworks to divide the subjects. Many later artists copied this artistic choice.
How the Paintings Were Fixed (Restoration)
The 1507 oil painting was made on wooden panels. Wood and paint both change as they get older. This makes fixing and preserving them difficult. Over time, many attempts to fix the paintings added new layers of paint and old, yellowed varnish. This changed how the original image looked. Also, the back of the wooden panels had been strengthened. This was meant to stop the wood from bending. But it actually made the panels bend more.
The Met museum and the Museo del Prado worked together to fix the painting in 2020. They wanted to return it to its original state. They removed the back supports and smoothed the wood. They also took off the old varnish and extra paint from earlier repairs. Now, the painting looks like Dürer painted it. Before, the old varnish made the image look green. That green color is now gone, and the true colors are back.
Where the Paintings Are Now
We don't have old papers that say who first asked Dürer to paint Adam and Eve. Experts think they might have been made for the Town Hall in Nuremberg. This was Dürer's hometown. They were put there in the late 1500s. The Nuremberg City Council then gave them as a gift to Emperor Rudolph II. He displayed them in his new gallery at Prague Castle.
During the Thirty Years' War, armies attacked Prague. This event was called the Battle of Prague (1648). The Swedes took things from the castle. They moved the paintings to Stockholm. Then they became part of the collection of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. His daughter, Christina of Sweden, gave the artworks to Philip IV of Spain in 1654. This was after she gave up her throne.
The paintings then moved to The Royal Palace of Madrid. But they were later moved to a separate room called the "Vaults of Titian." This vault survived a fire in 1734 that destroyed much of the palace and its art. The paintings were then taken to the Buen Retiro palace. In 1762, King Charles III of Spain wanted to destroy the paintings. This was because of the way the human figures were shown. But Anton Raphael Mengs, the king's court painter, convinced him not to. Mengs said the paintings were important to study.
About ten years later, the paintings moved to the Academia de San Fernando for storage. They stayed stored away for many years. They could be seen freely in a room called the Sala de Juntas between 1809 and 1818. This was during the rule of Jose Bonaparte. In 1827, the two panels moved to their current home. This is the Museo del Prado in Madrid. They were not shown to the public because of the way the human figures were shown until 1838. Then, they were finally put on display.
See also
In Spanish: Adán y Eva (Durero) para niños
- List of paintings by Albrecht Dürer
