The Four Elements

Fire is shown at the top right as a radiant male figure striking sparks, while Air reclines on a bank of clouds at the top left holding a chameleon. Below them, Earth is personified as a woman crowned with grain and fruit, and Water appears as a muscular river god pouring liquid from an urn. The composition uses the twisting, muscular forms typical of the Haarlem Mannerist style to show how these forces interweave to form the material world.

This print visualizes the foundational theory of natural philosophy that all matter in the sublunary world is composed of these four elements. The Latin inscription describes how the 'omnipotent Father' arranged these elements to create all mortal life, reflecting the Neoplatonic view of a divinely ordered cosmos.