Job and His Daughters

This illustration is taken from Blake’s late illustrations of the Book of Job. Behind Job’s head, we can see an image of God, represented very similarly to Job himself. On the left and right, we see the destruction of his servants and ploughmen, both described in the Bible. The story of Job enduring the suffering placed on him by God is an interesting choice for Blake to tackle, given his unconventional reading of Christianity. It has been suggested that Blake’s daughters in this image represent the artistic vision that humanity was capable of achieving before being severed by institutionalized religion and its outflow, empirical science.