Litsy

The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve | Stephen Greenblatt

Chapter 8: Embodiments sent me to the proverbial art books (google image search) as it discusses some of the most iconic depictions is Adam and Eve. The one that is considered the best embodiment of Adam and Eve is at the top, by Dürer. Van Eyck is on the bottom right, Masaccio is bottom left, and Baldung Grein‘s rather creepy portrayal is bottom center.
#adamandeve #art #painting #etching #durer #vaneyck #masaccio #baldunggrien #stephengoldblatt

julesG Dürer's Eve has quite a lot of muscles. I'd like to know what workout routine she followed. 6y

julesG Sorry inappropriate. 🙈 6y

GingerAntics @julesG 🤣😂🤣 right? Apparently the Garden of Eden is good for the body. I‘m getting this is where women started having body image issues. This is supposed to be female body perfection. FFS who looks like that and is remotely sane? (Not counting the crazy cross fit chicks who like to eat like cave men and are actually massively short of a ton of nutrients for no good reason.) 6y

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julesG Well, I counter with, I have two female friends doing cross fit and still looking like women. Anyway, I'm not sure who Dürer used as a model. Women in his time didn't look like that. Either they had curves or were close to emaciation. 6y

julesG Even the ancient Greeks (my phone wanted to autocorrect to freaks) exaggerated and stylised the natural body in their statues. 6y

GingerAntics @julesG actually, Greenblatt talked about Dürer‘s models. We don‘t know there names, but he was going for absolutely perfection, so he used several models, using the face of this one, the arms of that one, the thighs of this one, the feet of that one, and so forth to construct a woman that literally didn‘t exist. The same is true for Adam. Dürer did extensive study of the human form (doing some of the earliest self portraits - (edited) 6y

GingerAntics @julesG - including one stunning nude self-portrait) as well as studies of Greek and Roman statues. He put a lot of work and probably even drafts into this etching. Some of his notebooks remain with drawings as detailed as the hands and wrists, of foot placement, and posture so he could get it as perfect as possible. So no, neither is any loving human being. 6y

GingerAntics @julesG Here‘s a link to his self-portrait. It‘s interesting to see how he saw himself in the mirror (a rarity for the time). He‘s got self-portraits throughout his life, so it‘s almost a study of his changing view of himself. Of course we don‘t have photos to see how accurate they are, but he was said to have an amazing eye for detail. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/25/2a/16/252a161f1f65f9bb42be885a4eb949e6--albrecht-du... 6y

GingerAntics @julesG some people do crossfit and it‘s not bad. It‘s the people that basically treat it as a cult that I‘m concerned with. 6y

julesG Knew it. We were tortured with Dürer in school and then I went to that one university course in art history,... He did his research, Dürer, but he overdid it a tiny bit. Ah, well, today they'd photoshop Kim Kardashian's behind onto Heidi Klum's legs and top it off with whoever's beasts. Again, history repeating itself. 😜 6y

julesG Dürer's eyes are too far apart. Poor chap didn't get that angle right in this one. But he had an eye for details. Just like Leonardo. 6y

GingerAntics @julesG at least his intent wasn‘t shaming women, it was just perfection, and he was totally cool with the fact it wasn‘t real. 🤷🏼‍♀️ His face is a little funky. He doesn‘t look quite like that in other self-portraits, so I‘m kind of wondering if maybe he was more focused on other “details” that don‘t appear in any other self-portrait. 😏😂🤣 6y

julesG 😂😂😂 6y

GingerAntics @julesG when I was reading about everything he did and all the notebooks, I was thinking of Da Vinci as well. Dürer has a similar background to Da Vinci‘s as well. Showing talent young, drawing things no one else could quite see the point or beauty in, etc. If he was an investor and scientist, too, I might start believing in reincarnation. 6y

julesG He's said to be the "inventor/discoverer" of the perspective. Of making drawings of buildings and landscapes more lifelike by using perspective and ratio. 6y

GingerAntics @julesG maybe the reinvention, because Da Vinci did that a few hundred years earlier, and they did that in Ancient Rome and Greece. Somehow, when Rome fell, even art took a few giant leaps backward. 6y

CarolynM Interesting discussion @GingerAntics @julesG Thank you. The Durer self portrait is really interesting, but I wonder what he was doing to get that musculature, especially around the hips! In my eyes the Van Eck Adam and Eve are the most likely to be what people really looked like in his time. I was blown away by the beauty of the Ghent altarpiece when I saw it last year. 6y

GingerAntics @CarolynM I think it depended on what one‘s profession was. Their wasn‘t machinery at the time, so most heavy lifting had to be done by a man or group of men. I‘d think Van Eyck got women accurately (although she‘s supposed to be pregnant in that), but Dürer was definitely going for absolute perfection. If you look at the Vitruvian man, that‘s supposed to be a self-portrait of Da Vinci, and he looks similar. 6y

GingerAntics @CarolynM at the same time, you have to remember that a self portrait is always an interpretation of how the artist sees himself. That‘s a an interpretation of how Dürer saw himself, that may not actually be how muscular he actually was. It may have also been a study in the ideal musculature he could have had. He did A LOT of anatomical study and studying of classical art in preparation for his Adam and Eve. 6y

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