Affiche Adam and Eve, Engraving by Albrecht Durer

Adam and Eve by Albrecht Durer, 1504, is one of the finest copper plate engravings ever produced and a crowning achievement of Renaissance art. The figures of Adam and Eve, themselves an apex of Renaissance study of the human figure and proportions, are dramatically lit against the trees of the Garden of Eden, surrounded by the peaceful animals of Paradise. A crowned serpent takes a fruit from the tree and places it in the hands of the woman. The density of light and shadow, sureness of the sculptural drawing, and depth of scriptural and humanist meaning cement Durer’s reputation as a central artist of the Renaissance period. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was a German painter of the Northern Renaissance and also an engraver, printmaker, mathematician and theorist whose woodcut prints and theoretical treatises secured his reputation as one of the greatest artists of Europe. His many paintings, portraits, altarpieces, watercolors, and engravings were the first in the Northern Renaissance to use classical motifs from antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. The art of landscape painting began with his watercolors. Durer’s unparalleled skill in drawing and engraving as well as mastery of perspective allowed him rapid execution of a range of motifs which elicit universal admiration to this day.