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“This is a work of enormous erudition, artistic insight, and biblical expertise. Only Samuel Terrien could bring it off.”
—The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Do artists who deal with biblical scenes study the texts that inspire them? At the same time, do scholars pay attention to artists as biblical interpreters? Eminent biblical scholar Samuel Terrien seeks to answer these questions in this first ever comprehensive survey of Jobian iconography from the third century to modern times. Through an analysis of the varying depictions of Job he finds that artists were not usually subservient to directives of religious authorities; rather, they often contradicted or preceded the exegetical trends of these commentators.
Terrien has selected more than 150 masterpieces from the approximate 800 images of Job that have escaped oblivion. His vast knowledge of the biblical text illumines the rich discussion, which ranges over artistic medium and time from the fresco of the Dura-Europos synagogue, the miniatures of the Patmos manuscript, the Doge Dandolo mosaic of the San Marco Baptistry in Venice, the mercy seats of Champeaux-en-Brie, the Sacra Allegoria of Giovannni Bellini in Florence, and Albrecht Dürer's Jabach Altarpiece in Cologne and Frankfurt, to the mystery soldier in Salvator Rosas Job in the Uffizi and the Job Geometricized à la Cimabuë by Marc Chagall in St.-Paul-de-Vence.
This rich interdisciplinary work reveals for the first time that Jobian artists saw in the ancient hero not only the prophet of a new life or the model of revolt and faith but also—and surprisingly—the intercessor of sexual reprobates, the patron saint of musicians, and, in modern times, the existential man.
“This is a work of enormous erudition, artistic insight, and biblical expertise. Only Samuel Terrien could bring it off.”
—The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
| List of Illustrations | ||
| Preface | ||
| Note on Scripture Quotations | ||
| Introduction: Artists and the Book of Job | ||
| Pt. 1 | The Prophet of New Life | |
| Ch. 1 | The Dura-Europos Synagogue | 3 |
| Ch. 2 | The Viale Manzoni Hypogeum | 10 |
| Ch. 3 | The Roman Catacombs | 17 |
| Ch. 4 | Sarcophagi of the Byzantine Age | 24 |
| Pt. 2 | The Philosopher of Suffering | |
| Ch. 5 | The Patmos Illuminations | 33 |
| Ch. 6 | Medieval Manuscript Illuminations | 44 |
| Ch. 7 | Romanesque and Gothic Sculpture | 62 |
| Ch. 8 | The Late Gothic Age | 89 |
| Pt. 3 | Intercessor for Sexual Reprobates | |
| Ch. 9 | Job and the Musicians | 107 |
| Ch. 10 | Renaissance Paintings | 127 |
| Ch. 11 | Folk Art in Flanders and New Mexico | 146 |
| Ch. 12 | The Baroque Splendor | 159 |
| Pt. 4 | The Existential Man | |
| Ch. 13 | From Pathos to Bathos | 179 |
| Ch. 14 | Blake: Le Mal du Siecle | 194 |
| Ch. 15 | Fin de Siecle | 229 |
| Ch. 16 | The Will to Live | 243 |
| Postscript: The Existential Man | 266 | |
| Notes | 275 | |
| Indexes | 297 |
Overview
Do artists who deal with biblical scenes study the texts that inspire them? At the same time, do scholars pay attention to artists as biblical interpreters? Eminent biblical scholar Samuel Terrien seeks to answer these questions in this first ever comprehensive survey of Jobian iconography from the third century to modern times. Through an analysis of the varying depictions of Job he finds that artists were not usually subservient to directives of religious authorities; rather, they often contradicted or preceded...