Water Color Illustrations to the Bible

The Bible had an enormous influence on Blake’s work as both artist and poet. Among his many and complex responses to that text are water color drawings. These range throughout most of Blake’s career, beginning with early works such as Abraham and Isaac, datable to c. 1780, and continuing to Moses Placed in the Ark of the Bulrushes of c. 1824. The main group of biblical water colors is a sequence of about 80 works of similar size painted for Thomas Butts between c. 1800 and c. 1806. The Old Testament subjects emphasize interactions, both revelatory and punishing, between the human and the divine. New Testament subjects naturally center on the life of Christ. Most of the works based on books following the four Gospels, such as The Conversion of Saul, picture moments of revelation. The water colors painted for Butts include some of Blake’s greatest works in that medium, including The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun and at least seven other examples of the apocalyptic sublime based on the Book of Revelation.

The water colors are arranged here according to the order in Martin Butlin's The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, a catalogue raisonné and standard reference work on Blake. At some point after 1846, many of the water colors painted for Butts were mounted on backing mats inscribed in handsome script with appropriate passages from the Bible. Many of these mats have been removed and discarded, but a few of those still extant, such as the mat for Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, have been included under "Related Works in the Archive" on the pull-down menu.