In the Beginning 1883 - 1884

Editor: This is "In the Beginning," a pencil and watercolor drawing created by Elihu Vedder between 1883 and 1884. It feels both delicate and intensely symbolic. There's a tension in the composition, almost like a stage play frozen mid-scene. How do you read its visual language? Curator: Ah, yes. A captivating piece. Vedder always had a flair for the dramatic, didn’t he? The academic execution clashes perfectly with the raw emotion bubbling beneath the surface, making me think about Victorian anxieties, and of course about a sense of the fall and origins of mankind. Eve stands as an androgynous symbol: beautiful, powerful, perhaps a bit too knowing? Notice how the serpent becomes her pedestal; an origin that traps her as the world’s foundation is formed and set. Editor: I hadn’t quite picked up on the idea of the snake as a literal base, like Eve is fixed, which adds to the overall feeling of a set scene. But I thought the poem next to Eve read like the original sin was devised. Am I way off track? Curator: Not at all! Vedder presents such wonderful dilemmas, doesn't he? In it, Man creates paradise WITH the Snake…He's not letting anyone off the hook here. What about that bizarre cupid, clinging to her skirt for dear life! And the web! A subtle memento mori, and it even mimics a literal spider-web of information. There is such creative force in Vedder's interpretation. This feels almost a parody of paradise. What do you make of that? Editor: Seeing that cupid figure now, everything suddenly feels a little less sacred and more… cynical? Thanks, that really opens it up in a completely different way. Curator: Precisely. Vedder allows space to question… even space to giggle. I think that's how he speaks across time so powerfully.