Stauros' Notebook
Stauros Notebook is a quarterly publication of Stauros USA
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Stephen A. Schmidt
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Amy L. Florian
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Winter, 2002
Conflicting Images of Suffering William Blake, English, b.1757, d.1831 Illustrations of the Book of Job London: Published by William Blake, 1825 By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University David Anderson William Blake’s images in the Book of Job present the spiritual and physical journey of faith that Job traverses to reach redemption. We see here two of the twenty-two engraved plates. The first is the terrifying confrontation of Job and the cloven-footed God wrapped in a serpent, actually Satan in disguise, surrounded by lightning and black flames. This is the nadir of Job’s life. The second is the last image from the book and we see the result of Job’s persistent faith, the entire family reunited under a tree greeting the rising sun with music and praise. The images dramatically embody the substance of conflictual spirituality. The mystic William Blake is not as well known for his art as his poetry. It is surprising therefore, that engraving was his means of making a livelihood. Near the end of his career Blake received the commission to create the illustrations of the Book of Job, a project perfectly suited to his life dedicated to the exploration of the spiritual through word and image. The style of the engravings is rendered in an antique imagery unique to Blake. Seeing it is equivalent to listening to a music from the distant past, delicate, unfamiliar, full of a complex personal symbology all resounding with challenging potency. |