Three men hurry in from the left, arms raised.
Bible in art · Job
Job's Comforters
William Blake · 1825
National Gallery of Art, Washington
William Blake, the London poet and printmaker, published his Illustrations of the Book of Job in 1825, two years before his death: twenty-one plates and a title page, engraved by his own hand. This proof is plate 7; on the full sheet Blake framed the picture with lines from the Bible.
Job sits on a heap of straw by a wall, in a loincloth, his wife behind him with her hands raised. From the left his three friends hurry in, arms high, weeping. Behind them a ruined town lies under a dark, streaked sky.
From the text
- The three friends who came to comfort him (Job 2:11)
- They could barely recognize him and wept aloud (Job 2:12)
- Job sitting among the ashes (Job 2:8)
- His skin covered with boils (Job 2:7)
The artist’s own
- All three friends making the same gesture, arms raised high
- Job’s wife beside him in grief — the text gives her only a harsh word (Job 2:9)
- The ruins of a town in the background
Details
The friends
Job
Long-bearded, he leans back, his skin dotted with sores.
His wife
She leans over him, hands raised to her face.
Ruins
Broken walls of a town on the hillside.
The heap
Job sits on a heap of straw.
William Blake, British, 1757–1827. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Gift of W.G. Russell Allen, 1941.1.232) · Engraving on India paper (proof) · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)