Durer, Adam and Eve, 1504

Mini intro

Date: 1504

Medium: engraving

size: 25.1 × 20cm

Style: Northern Renaissance

Key facts (3)

Scene taken before Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit, nature is in harmony, cat doesn’t try to catch mouse and humans unaware of nakedness

Set in European forest

Animals used to promote Christian symbolism

Subject matter (8)

Bottom left foreground - mouse - fertility as in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History fails to escape from under Adam’s foot

Bottom centre foreground - cat - overcoming of darkness - Isidore of Seville - lays across ground

Rabbit - next to Eve’s leg - lust and promiscuity - has back to viewer

Stag - Christ who tramples and destroys devil - bottom centre middle ground - large antlers

Ox - right middle ground - unemotional and calm - chews cud

Snake - centre foreground - winds itself around branch - devil - tempts Eve to take fruit - evil

Parrot - top left above Adam - its call sounds like Ave Maria (Isidore of Seville) - non-European animal

Tree splits scene as central axis - male and female

Style (5)

cat’s individual whiskers and fluffy coat - minute burin marks

smooth patterns of snake skin and how it curls around tree

knee bones and tendons of stag visible

easy to get fine details with engraving

naturalistic depictions and anatomical accuracy