Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve, the first biblical man and woman, are traditionally represented in the youthful, idealized bodies of the classical style. In his version of the moment of temptation, Rembrandt purposefully rejects this convention in favor of his own brand of realism. He instead presents Adam and Eve as older, ordinary people with as many flaws as all the humans that followed them. A comparison between the female figure in Jacob Matham’s Minerva and Mercury and Rembrandt’s Eve reveals differences not only in their bodily shapes, but also in the lines used to create their forms. Minerva’s torso consists of sweeping, parallel engraved strokes while Eve’s rounded stomach is shadowed with short, densely layered lines. 

Rembrandt was well aware of his contemporaries’ artworks through his own collection of prints, and even draws direct connections between his works and theirs. The winged serpent that digs its claws into the tree at Eve’s left is borrowed from the German Renaissance painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) The Harrowing of Hell woodcut. Rembrandt even alluded to the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael’s (1483–1520) fresco of The Creation of Eve in the Vatican Logge in his characters’ poses. Despite his reuse of these acclaimed images, seventeenth-century critics were displeased with Rembrandt’s distinctly unidealized nudes. The effect of his unusual decision, however, was to normalize the biblical characters, allowing audiences to more easily identify with their desire and their choice.

Rembrandt increases the visual impact of the scene by lighting the scene from behind, illuminating the figures with the Garden of Eden’s glow. This also places the protagonists under the serpent’s dark shadow, contrasting the good of the garden with the evil of the serpent through the difference in their tones. 

Written by Kevin Santoro, edited by Simone Edgar Holmes

Bibliography

Art Institute Chicago. “Adam and Eve.” Accessed June 25, 2020, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/70019/adam-and-eve.

ArtsMia. “Adam and Eve, 1638.” Accessed July 6, 2020, https://collections.artsmia.org/art/55308/adam-and-eve-rembrandt-harmensz-van-rijn.

Smith, David R. “Raphael’s Creation, Rembrandt’s Fall.” Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte 50, no. 4 (1987): 496-508. doi:10.2307/1482420.

White, Christopher, and Karel G. Boon. Rembrandt’s Etchings, an Illustrated Critical Catalogue. Volume 1. Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1970.