Eve

On the frame of this altarpiece is the year 1432, and Adam and Eve stand at its outer edges, life-size and completely naked. That was a bold thing to paint in the Low Countries then. Van Eyck did not smooth Eve into an ideal. He gave her a real body, closely observed, down to the soft rounded belly and the way daylight catches her skin. She holds up a fruit, and if you look closely it is not the apple of the usual story but a small rough citrus, a kind now nearly gone from gardens. Unlike the holy figures inside the altarpiece, she has no sky behind her. She stands in a shallow stone niche, as if lit in a room, and her feet reach the very edge of the frame, so she seems about to step toward you.