Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

First Day of Creation — Light and Darkness

First Day of Creation — Light and Darkness is the opening plate of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's monumental Bibel in Bildern (Bible in Pictures), a cycle of 240 wood-engravings illustrating the entire Old and New Testament published in installments between 1851 and 1860 in Leipzig by Georg Wigand. The cycle was the supreme achievement of Schnorr's late Munich-Dresden career and became, by repeated reproduction in editions across the Protestant world, one of the most reproduced illustrated Bible cycles of the entire nineteenth century. The opening plate depicts the moment from Genesis 1 in which God divides the light from the darkness on the first day of creation; Schnorr renders the divine act in a symmetrical compositional format with God enthroned in the upper register and the cosmic separation rendered as a great vertical band of contrasting tones below. The Bibel in Bildern shaped Protestant biblical illustration in the German-speaking world from its first publication through the early twentieth century.

The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is one of the early Genesis plates of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (1851–1860), the great cycle of 240 wood-engraved Bible illustrations that became one of the most-reproduced Protestant illustrated Bibles of the nineteenth century. The plate illustrates the great post-Flood building project on the plain of Shinar from Genesis 11; Schnorr renders the unfinished tower as a vast spiraling step-pyramid receding into low cloud cover, with hundreds of small workers scattered across its terraces hauling blocks, mixing mortar, raising scaffolds, and gesturing in dispute as the divine confusion of language begins to take effect. The composition shares stylistic kinship with Doré's almost-contemporary 1866 Tower of Babel plate, although Schnorr's cycle predated Doré's by several years and provided one of the visual sources from which Doré worked.

Cain Slays Abel

Cain Slays Abel is one of the early Genesis plates of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (1851–1860), illustrating the first murder in human history as told in Genesis 4. Schnorr stages the scene in a wild rocky landscape; Cain swings down a heavy club in mid-strike from above the fallen Abel, whose body is sprawled across the foreground rocks beside the smoldering remains of the offering whose acceptance has provoked the killing. A small distant flock of grazing sheep — the original cause of the brothers' competing offerings — continues to feed in unaware contrast at the upper right. The composition is among the most reproduced of Schnorr's Genesis sequence and shaped the visual treatment of the subject in nineteenth-century Protestant Bible illustration; Doré's almost-contemporary 1866 treatment of the same scene draws directly on Schnorr's compositional vocabulary.

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dreams

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dreams is one of the Genesis-narrative plates of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (1851–1860), illustrating the climactic episode from Genesis 41 in which the imprisoned Joseph is summoned before the Pharaoh of Egypt to interpret the king's dreams of seven fat and seven lean cattle and seven full and seven withered ears of grain — interpretations that lead to Joseph's elevation as the second-most-powerful man in Egypt. Schnorr stages the scene in the great hall of the Egyptian court with Pharaoh enthroned at the center surrounded by his counselors and the Egyptian magicians who have failed to interpret the dreams; Joseph stands in profile on the left in the act of explaining the divine meaning of the visions. The composition demonstrates Schnorr's characteristic combination of careful nineteenth-century historical-archaeological reconstruction with the German Nazarene movement's preference for clear, legible biblical narrative.

Jacob's Dream of the Heavenly Ladder

Jacob's Dream of the Heavenly Ladder is one of the Genesis-narrative plates of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld's Bibel in Bildern (1851–1860), illustrating the famous episode from Genesis 28 in which the patriarch Jacob, fleeing from his brother Esau, falls asleep at Bethel with a stone for his pillow and dreams of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending upon it. Schnorr stages the scene at the bottom of a luminous diagonal — Jacob asleep on the rocky ground in the lower right, his cloak pulled around him, with the ladder of light rising into a starry sky above him and a procession of small winged angels ascending and descending on its rungs. At the top, the figure of God appears in a small mandorla. The composition is among the most reproduced of Schnorr's Genesis sequence and a defining statement of the German Nazarene movement's interest in the visionary moments of Old Testament narrative.