Adam und Eva

Around 1520, Hans Baldung set two tall panels of Adam and Eve side by side, each figure over two metres high. Anyone who followed the new German art would have known the source at once. Baldung had trained in Nuremberg under Albrecht Durer, and these bodies follow Durer's famous nudes of 1507 closely, though painted faster and drier. Baldung adds his own touches, a deer at Adam's feet, small birds carrying old meanings about the body's humours. Eve twists toward the tree with the fruit already in her hand, her gaze sliding out to meet yours. The two panels once belonged to a group of four nude figures, and their idealised beauty was meant to be read against decay, the vanitas theme Baldung returned to all his life.