Boiled Bunnies: The Four Humors

I’m surprised I’ve been able to go this long without writing about my favorite artist, Beth Cavener Stichter. She is an amazing ceramic artist whom uses animal figures to convey very human emotions. She first sculpts her giant animals with solid clay on armatures. The sculpture is then cut into segments, hollowed, fired, and reassembled.

I discovered her work around the same time that I was in my first Art History class. We were learning about Albrecht Dürer’s print, Adam and Eve, which features the animal personifications of the Four Humors. I couldn’t help but connect the print to Beth Cavener Stichter’s Four Humors series, and the association has always stuck.

The Four Humors are the liquids once believed to make up the human body: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Depending on the season of your birth, you were prone to an overabundance of a particular humor, which contributed to your personality. When a person got sick, birth charts were used to decide if their humors were imbalanced compared to their natural ratio. Adam and Eve were believed to be the only humans with perfectly balanced humors, but they became imbalanced after indulging in temptation.

Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve
Can your spot all the animals in Dürer’s print?

The four personality types based on the humors are:

Sanguine - Those born in the spring have too much blood, which makes them overly lusty. This is represented by a rabbit.

Melancholic - Those born in the autumn have too much black bile, making them susceptible to various mental illnesses/imbalance. This is represented by an elk.

Choleric - Those born in the summer have too much yellow bile, which results in uncontrollable rage. This is represented by a cat.

Phlegmatic - Those born in the winter have too much phlegm, and so embody sloth and laziness. This is represented by a cow.

The rabbit is the only traditional animal used by Stichter, but her other animals still successfully embody the nature of each personality. Look at the way each animal interacts with its black form – they fit so well!