page_title: After the Deluge (painting)
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: After the Deluge (painting) / Composition
context_page_description: After the Deluge, also known as The Forty-First Day, is a Symbolist oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts, first exhibited as The Sun in an incomplete form in 1886 and completed in 1891. It shows a scene from the story of Noah's Flood, in which after 40 days of rain Noah opens the window of his Ark to see that the rain has stopped. Watts felt that modern society was in decline owing to a lack of moral values, and he often painted works on the topic of the Flood and its cleansing of the unworthy from the world. The painting takes the form of a stylised seascape, dominated by a bright sunburst breaking through clouds. Although this was a theme Watts had depicted previously in The Genius of Greek Poetry in 1878, After the Deluge took a radically different approach. With this painting he intended to evoke a monotheistic God in the act of creation, but avoid depicting the Creator directly.
  The unfinished painting was exhibited in Whitechapel in 1886, under the intentionally simplified title of The Sun. Watts worked on the painting for a further five years, and the completed version was exhibited for the first time at the New Gallery in 1891.
context_section_description: Watts illustrated the scene with a highly stylised seascape. Above the sea is a bright sunburst, with the light of the sun illuminating the surrounding clouds and bright rays projecting beyond the edges of the canvas.
  Watts's composition echoes J. M. W. Turner's 1843 treatment of the same topic, Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory)—The Morning after the Deluge—Moses Writing the Book of Genesis, in primarily depicting a circle of bright light. However, Turner's painting depicts recognisable human figures, and no work by Turner ever came as close to pure abstract art as Watts's composition.
  In this stage of his career Watts regularly painted images linking awe-inspiring natural events and the will of God. His focus on the sun reflects his longstanding interest in it as a divine symbol; The Sacrifice of Noah, painted c. 1865, showed Noah sacrificing to the sun in thanks for his family's salvation. This interest in the sun possibly came from Watts's acquaintance Max Müller, who had written extensively on solar theories of mythology (the belief that the religions of Europe, the Middle East and southern Asia were all ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European worship of the sun). Writing after Watts's death, his widow Mary Seton Watts wrote that:
  A visitor looking at After the Deluge remarked that into such a scheme of colour he felt it would not have been impossible to introduce the figure of the Creator. 'Ah no,' Mr Watts replied. 'But that is exactly what I could wish to make those who look at the picture conceive for themselves. The hand of the Creator moving by light and by heat to re-create. I have not tried to paint a portrait of the sun—such a thing is unpaintable—but I wanted to impress you with the idea of its enormous power.'
  — Mary Seton Watts, writing c. 1910.
  Watts had previously depicted an orange sun above a flat sea in his 1878 work The Genius of Greek Poetry, but the theme and composition of After the Deluge was radically different. The Genius of Greek Poetry was intended to evoke pantheism, with figures representing the forces of nature in human form working and playing, while being watched by the large central figure of the Genius. After the Deluge was explicitly intended as a monotheistic image, evoking both the magnificence and the redemptive mercy of a single all-powerful God engaging in the act of creation. 
  After the Deluge was exhibited in unfinished form in 1886 as The Sun at St Jude's Church, Whitechapel; Samuel Barnett, vicar of St Jude's, organised annual art exhibitions in east London in an effort to bring beauty into the lives of the poor; he had a close relationship with Watts, and regularly borrowed his works to display them to local residents. Following this exhibition Watts continued to work on the painting for a further five years.
caption: The Genius of Greek Poetry by George Frederic Watts, 1878
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