Noah's Ark 1846

Curator: My goodness, what a flurry of creatures! It feels like stumbling upon a vibrant, slightly chaotic dream, all those animals converging like that. Editor: Indeed. We're looking at Edward Hicks' "Noah's Ark," an oil on canvas painting created in 1846. What you're sensing as "chaotic dream" might stem from the sheer number of symbolic narratives packed into this one frame. Curator: Symbolic how? I’m picking up the biblical story, of course… Noah's Ark, plain as day. But there’s a certain… naive quality to the rendering. It doesn't feel grand, it feels…intimate. Editor: Precisely! Hicks was a Quaker minister as well as a painter. He saw the Noah story as not just a tale of salvation, but a parable about peace and coexistence. Look closely; predators and prey mingle harmoniously. This was a central tenet of Quaker beliefs and a direct response to the social turbulence of the time. Curator: I see that now—the lion truly is lying down with the lamb! And that bright, almost luminous ark set against the stormy background… is that a hopeful light shining onto a rural community? A promise perhaps? Editor: That’s it exactly! And while Hicks does align his work with Romanticism’s landscape tradition, we might even explore the relationship to contemporary indigenous perspectives which also see human relationships mirrored in ecological settings and in artistic practice, seeing human behavior reflected in these intricate webs. The animals are presented as sentient beings—a vital part of the community, mirroring humanity, demanding empathy. Curator: So it is both childlike and deeply philosophical, all wrapped up in one rather charming, slightly unsettling image. It's amazing how he managed to distill such big ideas into this…folk-art vision. Editor: "Folk art" here serves as a vital challenge, in a moment when academic art tried to exclude diverse visual styles, especially women artists. Edward Hicks' painting resonates across centuries because of these diverse traditions and legacies. It also speaks of the deep-seated hopes and possibilities around equity across species, identities, beliefs. Curator: It leaves me feeling hopeful, if a little overwhelmed by the task! What an incredible thing to realize anew in our chaotic moment in history, staring at this simple picture of so many animals.