Adam

When this panel was painted in 1528, the town where Cranach worked, Wittenberg, was the noisy centre of the new Protestant movement, and a life-size naked man was not an obvious thing to hang on a wall. The story of Genesis supplied the reason. This is Adam alone, standing on a dark ground with a cut branch held in front of him. One hand is raised to his head, fingers in his hair, and he seems caught in the moment of hesitation before he takes what Eve is offering. Over his shoulder climbs one half of the tree of knowledge. The panel was never meant to hang by itself. Eve stands on a second panel of the same size, and the tree only closes into a single tree when the two are placed together, which is how the Uffizi now shows them.