New Translations: Genesis

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By Jill Nathanson

December 6, 2010



In her paintings, Jill Nathanson explores and updates the tradition of color-based abstraction, while experimenting with the abstract elements within Jewish thought. Since the 1990s she has created three series related to Jewish text and ritual: The Shivitis, Seeing Sinai, and New Translations: Genesis. Seeing Sinai (2005) – a close reading of Exodus 33-34 through abstract painting and original midrash – was a collaboration with Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen. Works from two of the three projects are on view in her exhibition, Sacred Presence/Painterly Process: Jill Nathanson’s “Seeing Sinai” and “New Translations: Genesis,” at the Derfner Judaica Museum in Riverdale through December 31.

New Translations (2007-2010) is a mixed media installation based on the implications of Robert Alter’s translation of Genesis 1. Nathanson finds that the Alter text is less conceptual than previous translations, describing it as “physical, even gestural, where the language allows for visualization of the ‘Days’ and a sense of the essential energy of each part of creation.” Her series in response to Genesis “is a meditation on energy and matter forming, separating and ordering in those first six ‘Days.’ It is a commentary on how the parts of existence might be thought to relate to one another. How did God know when the job was done, creating things that had never been seen before (when nothing had been seen before)?”

Called the Light Day, 2007-2010, mixed paper, plastics, acrylic paint, 23 x 36”

When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters, God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And it was evening and it was morning, first day.



Separate Water from Water, 2007-2010, mixed paper, plastics, acrylic paint, 46 x 68”

And God said, “Let there be a vault in the midst of the waters, and let it divide water from water.” And God made the vault and it divided the water beneath the vault from the water above the vault, and so it was. And God called the vault Heavens, and it was evening and it was morning, second day.



Its Seed Within it Upon the Earth, 2007-2010, mixed paper and plastics, 46 x 61”

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered in one place so that the dry land will appear,” and so it was. And God called the dry land Earth and the gathering of waters He called Seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth grow grass, plants yielding seed of each kind and trees bearing fruit of each kind, that has its seed within it upon the earth.” And so it was. And the earth put forth grass, plants yielding seed of each kind, and trees bearing fruit that has its seed within it of each kind, and God saw that it was good. And it was evening and it was morning, third day.



And They Shall be Lights in the Vault of the Heavens, 2007-2010, mixed paper and plastics, 47 x 80”

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and they shall be signs for the fixed times and for days and years, and they shall be lights in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth.” And so it was. And God made the two great lights, the great light for dominion of day and the small light for dominion of night, and the stars. And God placed them in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth and to have dominion over day and night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And it was evening and it was morning, fourth day.



Across the Vault, 2007-2010, mixed papers and plastics, 64 x 48”

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with the swarm of living creatures and let fowl fly over the earth across the vault of the heavens.” And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that crawls, which the water had swarmed forth of each kind, and the winged fowl of each kind, and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas and let the fowl multiply in the earth.” And it was evening and it was morning, fifth day.



In Our Image, By Our Likeness, 2007-2010, mixed paper and plastic,
149 x 29 ½”

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of each kind, cattle and crawling things and wild beasts of each kind. And so it was. And God made wild beasts of each kind and cattle of every kind and crawling things on the ground of each kind, and God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, by our likeness, to hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and the cattle and the wild beasts and all the crawling things that crawl upon the earth.”

And God created the human in his image,
in the image of God He Created him,
male and female He created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it, and hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and every beast that crawls upon the earth.” And God said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth and every tree that has fruit bearing seed, yours they will be for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and to all the fowl of the heavens and to all that crawls on the earth, which has the breath of life within it, the green plants for food.” And so it was. And God saw all that He had done, and, look, it was very good. And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day.



Genesis 1 text from Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004). Reprinted by permission of the author. Robert Alter is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley and has published many acclaimed works on the Bible, literary modernism, and contemporary Hebrew literature. His latest work, The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary, was published this fall by W.W. Norton. Alter was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Lifetime Achievement and the PEN Center Literary Award for Translation.

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