Adam

In 1504, in Nuremberg, Albrecht Dürer engraved the first man and woman as two nudes of ideal proportions and set animals around their feet. Each creature stood for one of the four temperaments, the humours that, in the thinking of the time, fell out of balance once the couple ate the fruit. Dürer's print soon became known in Venice, and this panel borrows from it openly. Look low in the picture. At the far left edge, beside a tree trunk, is the head of an ox, the sign of sluggish, phlegmatic idleness. Between Adam's legs and off to the right lie two white rabbits, standing for the sanguine temperament and its sensual appetites. Adam himself looks straight out at us, the fruit already held out in his left hand.