Art History: why doesn't Adam have a beard?

[Giant_Spongess]

@moonstarssun

And although Michelangelo’s paintings of biblical characters usually didn’t have hair, good ol’ David has pubes.

I would assume that stems from the ancient Greek tradition of male pubic hair.

[Queen_Bruin]

@Askia

Nitpick. If that was a temptation, shouldn’t there be some forbidden fruit?

That looks like God creating Eve from sleeping Adam to me.

It’s a panel from a larger Temptation piece, sorry for the inconsistency.

[Queen_Bruin]

More of that particular panel. It is the creation and the temptation; I was in such a hurry to find a cite that I glossed over the details. :o

[Rodgers01]

@moonstarssun

I majored in art history, and this question came up often. Hairlessness (according to a couple of my profs anyway) in Renaissance and Baroque art represents purity, an idea that may stem from the less-than-wonderful hygiene at the time. Clean, smooth skin was highly desirable and probably pretty difficult to achieve, so depicting people (especially women) as hairless was a way of showing that they were above reproach.

@E-sabbath

Don’t forget the strong Classical tradition. The greeks were viewed as perfect and the source of all knowlege, and thus there were tendencies towards aping them. The Young Man, the athlete statues, as opposed to the Statesman statues, tended to be clean shaven

Then how come Jesus always has a beard?? Is there a Biblical verse that references it?

I think part of all this is that someone started a tradition of painting a famous Biblical or historical figure with certain characteristics, and other artists just followed the traiditon so that the viewers would instantly know who they were supposed to be looking at.

[Walloon]

Jesus wasn’t always pictured as having a beard. The representations of Christ in the first several centuries of Greco-Italian and Byzantine traditions often show him beardless. Some examples:

• Christ and Twelve Apostles, mid 4th century A.D.
• Christ with St. Peter and St. Paul, A.D. 359.
• The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, A.D. 520.
• Christ enthroned, A.D. 547.

[jayjay]

@Walloon

Hey, I recognize the Adam in that Gossaert painting. It’s Bob Ross!

Well, I’m sure there were a lot of happy trees in Eden…

[Rodgers01]

@Walloon

Jesus wasn’t always pictured as having a beard. The representations of Christ in the first several centuries of Greco-Italian and Byzantine traditions often show him beardless. Some examples:

• Christ and Twelve Apostles, mid 4th century A.D.
• Christ with St. Peter and St. Paul, A.D. 359.
• The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, A.D. 520.
• Christ enthroned, A.D. 547.

Thanks, I stand corrected. But there are very few from, I dunno, the Middle Ages on (?) that show him beardless, at least among the ones that I’ve ever seen in books/churches/museums.

[jayjay]

So why are so many of the beardless Jesus representations Byzantine when it seems like every Greek Orthodox cleric I’ve ever seen has a beard that makes them look like they’re sticking their head through a shrub to talk to you?

[Gymnopithys]

Art History: why doesn’t Adam have a beard?

Because at that time only God was supposed to have a beard. Witness Michangelo and others.

[Flipstrip]

@Giant_Spongess

It’s silly that I’ve only just barely noticed this, but why doesn’t Adam have a beard in pictures of the Garden of Eden?

He does. Her name was Eve.

[Walloon]

@Flipstrip

He does. Her name was Eve.

I know what the slang definition of “beard” is, but how does that relate to Adam and Eve?

[yBeayf]

So why are so many of the beardless Jesus representations Byzantine when it seems like every Greek Orthodox cleric I’ve ever seen has a beard that makes them look like they’re sticking their head through a shrub to talk to you?

Most Byzantine depictions of Christ since, oh, the end of the iconoclastic period, have Him with a full beard. The bearded clergy, though, is an ancient tradition in the east, though the length of beards has varied depending on time period. The general hairyness of clergy got a boost when the monastic and cathedral rites merged sometime after the sack of Constantinople by the Venetians, and it became the custom for clergy to have completely uncut hair and beards, a practice picked up by the Russians after the Nikonian reforms.

[Flipstrip]

@Walloon

I know what the slang definition of “beard” is, but how does that relate to Adam and Eve?

I was saying that Eve was Adam’s “beard.”

(Why yes, I am going to hell, why do you ask?)

[Bryan_Ekers]

I guess Adam really was interested in Steve.

[scotandrsn]

@Flipstrip

I was saying that Eve was Adam’s “beard.”

maybe you’re thinking of “broad”.