ROOM 01The garden
Cole, Rembrandt and Martin all had to sit down and work out what the passage actually said before they could paint a word of it. Seven paintings in this hall, the verse under each one, and the guide that takes it further.
The hall
ROOM 02The gate
“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
Genesis 3:24
Same painter, same year, one canvas later. Light on the right, wolves on the left, and a doorway nobody walks back through.
Thomas Cole
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
ROOM 03The writing
“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.”
Daniel 5:5
A room full of people and one man can read the wall. Rembrandt got the Hebrew right, including the direction it runs. That is the whole business we are in.
Rembrandt van Rijn
Belshazzar's Feast
ROOM 04The long night
“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”
Genesis 32:24
Look at the angel’s face. There is no anger in it. That is the part people miss at three in the morning.
Rembrandt van Rijn
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
ROOM 05The last day
“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
Revelation 6:17
Martin painted the whole city going over the edge. People treat this chapter as poetry. He treated it as landscape.
John Martin
The Great Day of His Wrath
ROOM 06The doorway
“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
Luke 15:20
One of the father’s hands is a man’s and one is a woman’s. Rembrandt painted it near the end of his life, after burying most of his own family.
Rembrandt van Rijn
The Return of the Prodigal Son
ROOM 07The gap
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Genesis 2:7
The famous part is the gap. God is straining across it. The man is not quite bothering to reach back.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
The Creation of Adam
Lights out
Cole, Rembrandt, Martin. None of them could paint a word of it until they had sat down with the text and worked out what it actually said. That part is still available to you, and it does not require talent.
About the pictures
Every work in this hall is in the public domain and was taken at full resolution from Wikimedia Commons. Artist, date, medium and holding collection are printed on each label exactly as the museums record them.
The Creation of Adam is shown as a detail of the hands. Nothing in this hall was generated.
