Genesis Illustrations

The illustrations in every book demonstrate the artist’s point of view, never really the author’s. There is always a little bit of the artist in every piece. I believe that Crumb’s illustrations do change the stories that we the readers will find in Genesis because the way he draws create a very realistic and dramatic view of Genesis. We expect God to be an old man and we the characters to have dark hair and eyes, not like the blond blue eyed Jesus that if featured in European religious art. Leading us to come up with our own judgments based on his images, but I don’t think he is changing the message that these stories are trying to present. Crumb only influences the emotions we as the readers feel towards the stories.

His illustrations only seem to add to the level of comprehension that could be achieved by the readers. He creates a very human visual by showing the graphicness of Genesis. The rape and sexual scenes, the murders, war, and the very human anger of God allows his audience to relate to the characters of Genesis, who are usually portrayed as some kind of perfect disciple of God. I don’t see any real liberties Crumb might have taken with the text nor do I see any reasons for his art to be considered heretic. I could understand why some people with the anthropomorphizing of God as it is offensive to some versions of Christianity, but the more graphic scenes are needed to prove a point that the characters of Genesis were real people who committed the same lustful and evil acts that people of our time commit.

There is a point to make that the people of the modern era have become more desensitized to some of the usually explicit visuals in magazines that if were shown on a movie would be declared for more mature audiences. The sex scene and the murder of Abel for example would probably never be as graphic on a televised version of Genesis, but in books and especially magazines it passes our eyes without a second glance because we’ve become used to nudity and death. I do not see any form of irony in his art it is straight forward and to the point, ignoring the flowery add-ins in the religious art of the past that made us only see the people of the Bible as gods, not as the confused and imperfect humans they were.