by James Tissot
"God Appears to Noah"
Posted on 06/25/2020 9:45:45 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark...I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you...Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you...I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Here is the Bing page "NOAH'S ARK IN ART” showing various painters' conceptions. Several are serious works worthy of interest; it was a favored theme for James Tissot, with eight contributions. Some examples:
The Bible encourages us to meditate on it (Ps. 1:1-3, 119:11-16, etc.), and these artists have done so and their works can assist us. But it is not only oil-on-canvas that can so help us; I refer to the astonishing video series The Chosen, which strolls through the four Gospels at the most leisurely pace. The eight episodes of Season 1 are finished, and the second of a planned seven seasons is coming soon. I say "leisurely" because after an entire year Jesus still has only seven of the apostles (although He's preparing to call up Thomas from the minor leagues--but Thomas is skeptical, of course). Anticipating a canvas of fifty-plus hours instead of a movie's paltry two hours, The Chosen turns the characters into three-dimensional humans and brings the Gospels alive--you have never seen anything even remotely like it. Here is the Official Trailer.
I'll start: I like McConnell's, the fourth from the top featuring a strikingly resolute Noah:
I think the artist wanted to help us to consider the unflagging determination Noah somehow summoned in the face not only of a herculean physical challenge but also of the responsibility for perpetuating the human race. That was how he earned Ezekiel's highest compliment (Ez. 14:14).
Francis Danby, The Deluge
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/francis-danby-the-deluge-r1105565
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/research/1250_10.jpg
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/research/1250_9.jpg
Seems to me that just about sums up the situation on God's throne before They selected and directed Noah.
Thanks for posting. I will check out the links to your previous posts. The painting in your post #4 is amazing.
The Sacrifice of Noah
The Flood
The Drunkeness of Noah
WOW! You could spend days just posting Noah paintings! Great Subject matter.
Tissot almost carries it by himself.
Welcome to the festivities!
Indeed.
I'm afraid, dear xp38, that your days as the miraculous hero on these posts are over: I'm on to you, and Wiki, now.
Apart from adding to your earlier posts the ceiling is done anyway. I know there are some works that exist around the walls but they aren’t by Michelangelo. Granted when we get to Revelation we do have the large vertical fresco of Christ and the last judgement but there is a long way to go to get to that. The only other items might be the prophet portraits which are individual so there is that.
Thanks for that helpful clarification.
None of the depictions really struck me, but I agree with you about the depiction of Noah by McConnell.
I was struck how few of the artists got the proportions of the ark correct:
15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[d] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[e] high all around.[f] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
450 long by 45 high by 90 wide. A 5:1 width to length ratio is very stable. Tank testing of an ark model showed it could survive 200 foot waves.
Most of the artists seemed to be influenced by the ships of their time.
That parochialism you see in their ship-imaginings occurs over and over. You'll find 15th Century A.D. architecture and clothing imposed upon 15th Century B.C. scenes. There was very little data available to them--no internet, no TV/film, no photographs, so often they just painted what they knew.
An even larger problem, though few are aware of it, are the giraffes and elephants artists always include so prominently. They weren't in the ark, because while the flood was "worldwide" it was not global, as Peter and other passages make clear: the flood covered the "world of that time," and where humans lived their geographically compact area did not include Africa's huge mammals. (Nor did Noah need to round up penguins, polar bears, buffalo, pandas or kangaroos.)
Thank you for the time and effort you take in assembling these threads.
It's not often that anyone reaches back to these early threads, which were inadequately-researched, primitively-presented, and altogether in need of doing properly, now that I finally know how. I wish I had another chance, but I've just yesterday finished assembling the Old Testament's 227th and final episode, and now I face the challenge of the New--so, what you see is what you get.
Thanks for your reply, manna.
Dan
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