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Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : God the Father marking Cain's forehead

Type
Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date
ca. 1826-1827
Accession number
000.42
Maker
William Blake(Opens in new tab) (British, 1757–1827)
Dimensions
image including text: 11 3/4 x 7 15/16 in. (29.8 x 20.2 cm.) tailpiece: 5 7/8 x 7 15/16 in. (15 x 20.2 cm.) sheet: 14 15/16 x 11 1/16 in. (38 x 28.1 cm.)
Medium
pencil on wove paper
Description
Text of Genesis 4:15 and 20 with ruled lines drawn in anticipation of further text. The design at the bottom of the leaf directly illustrates the single verse written above it ("And the Lord set a mark upon Cain"), but in such a way to visualize Blake's interpretation of the event set forth in the second line of his chapter heading on leaf 10 ("& of the Forgiveness of Sins written upon the Murderers Forhead"). God the Father, on the left, kneels to embrace the much smaller figure of Cain and to kiss his forehead in an act of tender forgiving and blessing more than marking. Cain turns his face up toward God and touches His right upper arm with his left hand. The composition follows the conventions used in many illustrations of the return of the prodigal son in Christ's parable (Luke 15:11-32), such as the engraving by Marten de Vos (1531-1603) and Rembrandt's famous etching of 1636. Through this visual allusion, Blake establishes a typological relationship between the marking of Cain and the forgiving of another wayward son, itself a foreshadowing of Jesus on the cross forgiving His murderers (Luke 23:34). A cottage with steeply-pitched roof stands in the background on the right. Two bending, perhaps kneeling, forms in front of the dwelling are probably Adam and Eve. Curving lines outline clouds on each side of God and Cain. The most significant alteration of the King James version is Blake's addition of "Adamah," the Hebrew word for "ground" in the English text, to indicate that Adam was made "of the dust of the ground" (2:7) and named accordingly. Blake uses the Hebrew word in only one other place in his writings, the "Laocoon" inscriptions of ca. 1820, where he explains that God repented that "he had made Adam (of the Female, the Adamah)." [1] Blake thereby suggests that the man created in Genesis 2:7 was originally a synthesis of masculine spirit and female matter, an internal dualism externalized in the creation of Eve. To underscore the nature of such a man, Blake also substitutes (albeit no consistently), "Adam" for "man." It may be significant that he makes no such changes in the "Elohim" creation myth of chapter 1 (see comments on leaf 7). However, Blake complicates the Elohim/Jahweh distinction by adding "Elohim" (a plural) after "Gods" in Genesis 3:5, apparently to contrast the creator of the material world with "Jehovah," his substitute for "Lord" in Genesis 4:1. [2] Blake introduced another group of revisions to eliminate a possible inconsistency in the King James text. In 2:8, Adam and Eve are located in "a garden eastward of Eden," but by 2:15 this becomes "the garden of Eden." Blake does not emend 2:8, but deletes "Eden" from 2:15. The change of "from the garden of Eden" to "at the garden of Eden" in 3:23 may have been made for a similar reason since "at" does not require the prior presence within necessitated by "from." In 4:15, leaf 10 and illustration of God marking Cain and forgiving him, leaf 11. Even the change of "his" to "its" in 1:11-12, and the deletion of "his kind" in 1:12, would appear to have been made for the sake of consistency with "itself" in the same verses. Similarly, Blake converts to the genderless pronoun in reference to "seed" at the end of 3:15 to be consistent with "it" earlier in the same sentence. Other revisions may be simple errors, but it is possible that even the most trivial changes are Blake's response to the Hebrew text. [3] Notes 1. Blake 1982, 273 (based on Genesis 6:6). Blake's association of "Adamah" with the feminine is probably based on the gender of the "ah" ending in Hebrew. For Blake's use of Hebrew in his own texts, see Arnold Cheskn, "The Echoing Greenhorn: Blake as Hebraist," Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 12 (1978-79): 178-83. 2. In 1810, Blake told Henry Crabb Robinson that the creator of the material world "was not Jehovah, but the Elohim" (Robinson's Remiscences, Bentley 1969, 545). Jehovah, as the bearer of a "Covenant of the Forgiveness of Sins," is contrasted with the vengeance-seeking Elohim at the end of The Ghost of Abel (Blake 1982, 272). See also H. Summerfield, "Blake and the Names Divine," Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 15 (1981):14-22. 3. This possibility was brought to my attention by Robert R. Wark's introduction to an unpublished facsimile of Blake's Genesis manuscript. I am grateful to Dr. Wark for allowing me to read his typescript.
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Department
European Art
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