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Adam and Eve by Hans Holbein the Younger

Adam and Eve by Hans Holbein the Younger

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By 1515 Hans Holbein and his elder brother Ambrosius had left Augsburg to establish themselves in Basel and were travelling to nearby towns like Lucerne to carry out commissions, often in journeymen teams. Their father, Hans the Elder, was also involved in such projects.


Though no prodigy (he was nearly twenty when this work was done) Hans shows how he has already assimilated the contemporary `Swiss' style in the unidealised, thinly-painted figures, whose faces abound with pentimenti - such corrections can be seen around Adam's eyes. The strongly linear nature of his art is already evident in the fluid, abstracted line of Adam's shoulder. This is memorably combined with the telling realism of the worm-eaten apple Eve holds up to view. Such attention to transitory and corrupt nature (exemplified by Adam and Eve) was a frequent concern of artists in the German schools - Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien and Grünewald. The emotional tone, of regret and world-weariness, is established with considerable subtlety in the faces of the transgressing couple, without the melodrama of much contemporary work, and presages the mature Holbein's psychological insight.


Adam and Eve are painted as busts and are set against a flat black background. This choice of representation is reminiscent of half length portraits, especially as the features of the first human couple are scarcely idealized and therefore seem more portrait-like. This is Holbein's way of individualizing the subject of the Fall of Man. The painting cannot have served as a devotional picture, since Adam and Eve were not saints and could not be invoked as intercessors. The picture must therefore have been intended for private religious meditation.

Details

Artist
Hans Holbein the Younger
Created
1517
Medium
oil on paper
Dimension
36cm × 30cm
Passage
Genesis 3:1-13
Housed at
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung St. Alban-Graben 16, Basel

Found in: Genesis, Genesis 3, 16th century, The Fall of Man

Genesis 3:1-13

1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,

3 but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”

4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die,

5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.

7 Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.

8 They heard Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.

9 Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13 Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:1-13 · World English Bible

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