Adam and Eve

Look at the whole engraving

Start at the bottom of the image. A cat lies between the two pairs of feet. Behind it, a rabbit sits close to the central tree. Higher on the right, two larger animals emerge from the darkness. Then follow the tree upwards to the serpent and Eve’s hand. The people dominate the image, but the surrounding creatures give the eye another route through it.

Albrecht Dürer made this engraving in 1504. ^[1] The reproduction shown here is credited to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Its collection record identifies an engraving on laid paper, numbered 84/2, with a sheet measuring 24.7 by 19.1 cm. ^[2] Keep that particular sheet distinct from the design when comparing museum records.

What do the animals mean?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art interprets four animals through the historical theory of temperaments: the cat as choleric, the rabbit as sanguine, the ox as phlegmatic and the elk as melancholic. ^[1]

James Snyder develops that reading through the story of the Fall. In his account, the humours are held in check in Eden, before the forbidden fruit is eaten; afterwards, they become active. He connects the animals’ quiet presence with that suspended condition. ^[3] His discussion helps explain why apparently incidental creatures receive such attention in readings of the print.

Look back at the cat rather than using the symbolic list as a substitute for looking. Its body stretches across the foreground, while its head turns towards the small creature nearby. The rabbit occupies a different position, farther back and partly enclosed by the tree and the larger animal above it. Compare the space each creature occupies and the direction it faces. A symbol table answers one question about the image; it does not exhaust the arrangement.

The scene offers time for that comparison. The bodies stand upright, the animals remain below them, and the forest fills the space around both. Ask where your eye would travel if the figures were hidden. Then uncover them and notice how strongly their pale surfaces interrupt the darker setting.

Why do the figures look different from the forest?

Snyder reads Adam and Eve through classical ideals of the human body. He compares the figures with the Apollo Belvedere and the Medici Venus, and describes their poses through the distribution of weight and relaxed limbs. His account sets those ideal figures against the dense northern forest. ^[3]

In Allen Memorial Art Museum’s catalogue essay, M. E. Wieseman describes early proofs in which the background is worked up while the figures remain unfinished. ^[4]

Follow Adam’s outline from the shoulder through the hip to the leg bearing his weight. Then follow Eve’s outline in the same way. Look at the changes in direction at their elbows and knees. The two bodies can be compared without treating them as identical halves of the picture.

Now turn to the trees. Their trunks narrow, swell and bend; branches enter the space above the figures. Tiny lines gather into darker patches behind the skin. The contrast becomes easier to see when the whole image remains available beside a detail. A large crop of a face can reveal the direction of the marks, but the relation between body and forest depends on the larger composition.

Is the tree an apple tree?

The Met identifies the branch in Adam’s hand as mountain ash, associated with the Tree of Life, and the fig beside Eve as the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. ^[1] Snyder describes the central tree as a hybrid: its fruit may be an apple, while its leaves are those of a fig. He calls it the Tree of Wisdom. ^[3] The sources offer interpretations with different wording; they do not justify a simple botanical label for everything in the scene.

Follow the branches before choosing a name for them. Adam grips one at the left. Another crosses Eve’s lower body. The serpent coils around the central trunk and brings its head towards the hand above. Notice which parts connect visibly and which disappear behind a body or into shadow.

The bird and the hanging plaque

At the upper left, a bird perches above a small hanging plaque. Look at how the plaque interrupts the bark and foliage: its pale rectangular surface offers a different kind of mark from the curved lines of feathers, leaves and hair.

The National Gallery of Art transcribes the engraved plaque with Dürer’s name, NORICVS and the date 1504. ^[5] Snyder discusses the Latin signature on this plaque and reads its reference to Dürer’s northern home as an expression of pride. Elsewhere in the same passage, he raises a possible symbolic reading of the parrot with a question mark. ^[3]

Try covering the plaque, then revealing it again. Does it change how you think about the image as something an artist made?

One design, separate museum records

The Ontario record gives object 84/2 and a sheet size of 24.7 by 19.1 cm. ^[2] The Met’s record is numbered 19.73.1 and lists dimensions of 25.1 by 20 cm. ^[1] These are separate collection records. Their measurements should not be combined into a supposedly definitive size for every reproduction of the design.

When comparing images, keep the object number beside the museum name. Keep the measurement label as well: a record that explicitly says sheet gives different information from one that simply says dimensions. The image credit belongs in that comparison too. A familiar composition alone does not establish which physical sheet a photograph records.

This page discusses Dürer’s design through an Ontario-credited reproduction. Its interpretations concern the arrangement and published readings of the engraving.