Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : The creation of Eve

Maker William Blake (British, 1757 - 1827)

Additional Title(s)

Genesis manuscript [no. 7 of 11 leaves]

Collections

William Blake Collection

ClassificationsDRAWINGS

Dateca. 1826-1827

Mediumpencil on wove paper

Dimensionsimage including text: 11 11/16 x 8 1/16 in. (29.7 x 20.5 cm.) tailpiece: 4 3/4 x 8 1/16 in. (12 x 20.5 cm.) sheet: 15 1/16 x 11 in. (38.2 x 28 cm.)

DescriptionText of Genesis 2:14-25. The design is surrounded by a framing line at the bottom and each side. Adam lies prone on the ground, his head on the left and his neck stretched back as if in agony. Several dark lines cross his chest to indicate either a restrictive band or an incision. Eve hovers just above him, with her head on the right and her feet touching. She appears to have just emerged from Adam's chest. We see the front of Eve's torso, but her head may be awkwardly twisted and her left arm, bent at the elbow, reaches up and to the right. Above her is God the Father, bearded and winged, soaring to the right with His hands at His side. Behind God, and offset in a recessional line to the right, are two further faces-either the remaining members of the Trinity or angelic attendants. Blake first lightly drew Adam's head and torso farther to the left, and Eve's head and left arm farther to the right, and then redrew the figures in darker lines. A few wavy lines at the bottom suggest vegetation, water, or perhaps even flames just below Adam's knee. Lines below and above Eve delineate the outlines of clouds. The basic format of the design-one horizontal figure suspended above another-was a favorite of Blake's. It appears in such major works as the 1795 color printed drawings "Elohim Creating Adam" and "Satan Exulting over Eve" (Butlin 1981, Nos. 289-92), and in "Job's Evil Dream," first executed as a watercolor ca. 1805-1806 (Pierpoint Morgan Library; Butlin 1981, No. 550.11) and engraved by Blake ca. 1823-26 as the eleventh plate in his Job illustrations. The Book of Genesis is a composite of at least two creation myths, as indicated by the two names given God in the Hebrew text: "Elohim" in Chapter 1, and "Jahweh" in Chapter 2. There are, for example, two versions of the creation of Eve, one in which "male and female" are created together (1:27), and the familiar tale of Adam's rib (2:21-22). Accordingly, Blake provides two illustrations of Eve's creation, the first as the headpiece to Chapter 2 (leaf 6), in which God may be creating man and woman together as in the Elohim version, and the second on leaf 7, corresponding to the Jahweh version. Blake seems to have known about the composite structure of Genesis as early as 1794 when he used a dual creation plot in The Book of Urizen. [1] For another version of the creation of Eve, see 000.9. Notes 1. See Blake 1982, 301. Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), 201-204, points out parallels between Blake's first three chapter headings and the structure of The Book of Urizen (1794). There would also seem to be an analogical but ironic relationship between Blake's interpretation of the mark of Cain in the Genesis manuscript and the "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" Blake "mark[s]"-i.e., observes and inscribes-in "London" (Songs of experience, 1794; Blake 1982, 26), argues convincingly for this influence. The multiple structure and authorship of genesis are (first?) notedin Richard Simon, a Critical History of the Old Testament, trans. H.D. [Henry Dickinson] (London: Jacob Tonson, 1682). Simon comments specifically on the two stories of Eve's creation, page 41.

InscribedWatermark: J WHATMAN / 1826

MarkingsWatermark: J WHATMAN / 1826

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Status

Not on view

Object number000.38

Terms