Job

With the current COVID-19, economic and cultural chaos it is not surprising that the suffering of Job comes to mind. For those unfamiliar with the story, Job is a prosperous, virtuous, righteous and pious individual whose faith is put to the test when he suffers a series of catastrophic losses. While despairing and rueing his birth, Job seeks out the reasons why he has been made to suffer and, in directly questioning his friends and God, learns what suffering tells us about God and the human condition. Ultimately, Job’s sincerity and integrity are acknowledged, and his good fortune is restored. An accessible animated version of the Old Testament story can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQwnH8th_fs

At times of crisis people have often looked to The Book of Job for explanation and consolation and this has resulted in many interesting and illuminating ideas. See for example the introduction to Stephen Mitchell’s retelling of the story: http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i10075.pdf; or the Jungian ‘take’ on Job: https://www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/book-reviews/727-answer-to-job-revisited-jung-on-the-problem-of-evil; or the opinion piece by moral philosopher, Susan Neiman, which interpolates William Blake’s images at: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/philosophical-reading-of-the-book-of-job/11054038

Recently the connection of coronavirus, Job and suffering has featured on the ABC Religion and Ethics program: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/coronavirus-creation-and-the-creator-biblical-faith-and-problem/12200508, and in articles on the internet like: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/whygod and https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/what-does-the-book-of-job-teach-us.html

The National Gallery of Victoria has a collection of William Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job. Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker who, was largely unrecognised during his lifetime, but is now considered a seminal figure in the history of visual arts and poetry of the Romantic Age. The engravings for Blake’s interpretation of the Job narrative were part of a William Blake exhibition in 2014.

The story of Job was clearly something that resonated with Blake. As early as 1785 he made several ink sketches which were engraved and sold as the ‘Prospectus to the Public’. He next completed a tempera painting of Job and his Daughters and of Satan smiting Job with boils in 1800 and then a series of watercolours and engravings in 1805-06. Finally, in 1823, John Linnell (an English engraver, landscape and portrait painter, and rival to John Constable) commissioned a series of twenty-two engravings from Blake to illustrate ‘The Book of Job’. These were completed and published in 1826 in an edition of 315. They were the last set of illustrations that Blake completed prior to his death.

The engravings were produced using the intaglio method of engraving and were engraved in ‘pure line’ without preliminary etching. They differ from the earlier watercolours in the inclusion of complex marginal designs which comment on the text using biblical quotes and images which reinforce the themes of the main illustrations.

Blake used symbols extensively in the illustrations and these were first discussed by Joseph Wicksteed in 1910. One of the particularly important symbols was the significance of right and left in the images – most notable is the use of right and left limbs in the figures. The right limb represents the spiritual and the good; the left, the material and evil. For example, in plate six, Satan (the accuser who tests Job) smites Job with boils using his left hand, and later in plate 15 God indicates Behemoth and Leviathan with his left hand. Contrarily, God banishes Satan with his right hand in plate 16 and speaks to Job from the whirlwind in plate 13 with his right arm extended forward. A full discussion of Blake’s symbolism can be found at ‘A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake’: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=HOxpOMQ_Pa8C&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=symbolism+in+blake+job&source=bl&ots=UJGHvwwJeD&sig=ACfU3U1Y7-DaMsj4e4oKAamDjgfzSr8dzg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJusfx3r3qAhWAzTgGHehVD4IQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=symbolism%20in%20blake%20job&f=false

As the NGV website describes: ‘Blake’s series is a complex, personal interpretation of the Book of Job that has parallels with his own mythology. Blake presents Job as a fallen man cut off from the true spiritual dimension of existence who must endure suffering before achieving redemption. Blake’s belief in the centrality of the poetic vision, or inspiration, is reflected in his narrative by Job’s spiritual awakening’.

Blake’s identification with Job is also seen in his other artistic endeavours. For example, Harold Bloom, the American literary critic who co-edited a book on William Blake in 2006, interpreted Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ as a revision of God’s rhetorical questions concerning the Behemoth and Leviathan in The Book of Job.

Finally, Blake’s poem from the song of Enion in Night the Second of the ‘The Four Zoas’ also connects Blake’s life with the suffering of Job – and perhaps with how we can relate to the current ‘corona chaos’ and face the harsh and distressing realities of the world we live in.