Adam and Eve, by Albrecht Dürer

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Channels: European ArtPaintingReligion and ArtSpanish Language
Artists: Albrecht Dürer
Themes: Learning to LookMaterials and Process

General aspects of the restoration project of Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer. Comments by Gabriele Finaldi, Deputy Director of Conservation and Research, and Pilar Silva Maroto, Head of the Department of Flemish and Northern Painting(up to 1500).

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00:06:00

00:00:14 The paintings move to the restoration studio, 2008

00:00:26 Part I: general considerations concerning the restoration project

00:00:30 After two years, Adam and Eve return to public view in the galleries.

00:00:36 The restoration has been particularly complex and delicate. These are extremely meticulously painted works.

00:00:43 Dürer?s manner of execution had, however, been negatively affected by their state of preservation,

00:00:50 above all of the Adam panel, which required more restoration than that of Eve.

00:00:55 Naturally, at the Museo del Prado we were able to use our own, highly experienced restorers:

00:01:04 José de la Fuente, a specialist in restoring wood panels, and Maite Dávila, a restorer at the Museum with many years of experience.

00:01:19 We could also count on the special collaboration firstly of the Getty Foundation,

00:01:28 which allowed us to count on the support and advice, and secondly of another important wood panel restorer,

00:01:34 George Bissaca of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

00:01:40 The restoration per se did not begin until the end of 2008, after all the preliminary studies had been carried out.

00:01:52 It is normal practice when the Prado restores works of this importance

00:01:58 that every possible test is made, all possible technical photographs are taken and everything else is done that allows the restorer to work with confidence and security.

00:02:08 X-rays were taken as well as infra-red reflectographs that allowed us to understand and fully learn about the way the works were painted.

00:02:19 These images confirmed some aspects that we already knew, and we were able to demonstrate

00:02:26 that when painting the Eve panel, Dürer changed the position of her hair,

00:02:36 which originally hung straight down through its own weight, but which the artist then repainted on top

00:02:41 to give it a more curvilinear rhythm that better suited the figure?s dynamic pose.

00:02:49 The paintings are now back on display thanks to the special sponsorship agreement

00:02:58 reached with Fundación Iberdrola, through which it has become a sponsor of the Museum?s restoration programme.

00:03:10 The Prado?s restoration programme is clearly one of the most appealing and attractive programmes of its type to be found in any museum.

00:03:20 Dürer had such a brilliant, exquisite mastery of line that there is a famous story in which Giovanni Bellini

00:03:28 is supposed to have said that he would give Dürer any of his paintings if Dürer would give him one of his brushes.

00:03:37 Bellini thought that Dürer must have had special brushes to paint the type of hair seen on the Eve figure,

00:03:45 which in fact Dürer was able to paint due to his absolute mastery of a delicate but firm, steady line. In fact, his brushes were just like anyone else?s.

00:03:53 Part 2: Adam and Eve in the context of Dürer?s oeuvre

00:03:58 Both Adam and Eve are works of extremely large size, each measuring 2.9m high.

00:04:08 They depict the nude forms of Adam and Eve life-size or even slightly larger than life-size.

00:04:19 Dürer was the greatest painter of the German Renaissance.

00:04:26 His training in Nuremberg falls within the context of the Gothic world of Flemish influence

00:04:33 but he was most interested in acquiring the secrets of Renaissance painting.

00:04:41 With this aim in mind, from 1500 he embarked on reading Vitruvius, studying Renaissance sculpture

00:04:48 and formulating a theory of proportions based on the relationship between the parts.

00:04:54 This theory is manifested in a particularly explicit way, for example, in his print of Adam and Eve of 1504.

00:05:05 Dürer returned to Venice for the second time in 1505, remaining there until the following year.

00:05:13 At that moment his aim was no longer to look for beauty in the relationship of parts.

00:05:21 Rather, in the light of the evolution of Renaissance painting and of his own work,

00:05:30 he shifted direction and started to understand beauty no longer in terms of the relationship of parts

00:05:40 but in a much more organic manner. Following his return to Nuremberg in 1507

00:05:46 this new concept is masterfully expressed in the Adam and Eve panels painted that year and now in the Prado.

00:05:55 These two paintings sum up the artist?s previous experiences

00:06:00 in his quest for proportions and for the lost beauty of the ancients.

00:06:08 The paintings move back to the galleries, 2010

00:06:24 With thanks to The Getty Foundation for its collaboration on the restoration of the supports

00:06:27 Presentation of the paintings in the gallery, sponsored by Fundación Iberdrola, Protector Member of the Museum?s restoration programme