Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve, 1504, Engraving
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471 – 1528)
#0000.0372
Painter, printmaker and theorist, Albrecht Durer is considered the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. His introduction of classical motifs in German art through his knowledge of Italian artists is exemplified by the two prints on view. Intent on developing a systematic representation of the human figure using mathematical principles, Durer wrote four books outlining the ideal representation of the human body. In Temptation of the Idler (The Dream of The Doctor) from 1498, one can see the beginnings of Durer’s interest in the ideal figure. The semi-draped female figure is well muscled, short waisted and full figured, a body type probably borrowed from The Venus of Medici.
In Adam and Eve both figures are nude, and the female figure is in the same classicizing pose. Durer drew inspiration for the modeling of Adam from the canonical sculpture the Apollo Belvedere. In Adam and Eve the heavily muscled male body acts as a counterpoint to the softened, slenderized curves in Eve’s figure. These idealized bodies are taller and more slender than the archetypal figures in The Temptation of the Idler (The Dream of the Doctor). The nude bodies of Adam and Eve serve as models of the new ideal, and the artists of Italy, France and Spain appropriated Durer’s system of proportion extensively.
