Genesis Creation by Igor Paley

The painting Genesis Creation by Igor Paley evokes emotions through a pervasive use of color which highlights life in the creation account of the Book of Genesis.

In this painting, Igor Paley expressed his interpretation of the creation of life on earth. The two creation accounts in Genesis both discuss the creation of the world and life as we know it but in two vastly different processes. 

The First Account

The first creation account written by the Priestly source focuses on order and a strict ritual of creation. The formulaic planning of creation involves three days of preparing the earth and three days of creating life. God in this account is omnipotent and distant from humans; God uses a pattern in creation seen when he commands, creates, and is pleased. Paley disregards the structure found in the first creation account and opts for a more chaotic view of creation. His abstract painting style is a break away from structure. Igor Paley is disregarding the orderly world God created in favor of an entropic depiction of life. His interpretation makes creation seem more chaotic than it was in Genesis. Rather than having God’s separation of light and dark, land and sea, and earth and sky, Paley’s work depicts all of life still together in a pre-creation state.The splatters and strokes suggest Paley’s idea of a lack of order in the creation that led to the world today. Using a Pollock like approach, Paley engages in a technique similar to action painting. Igor Paley’s painting underscores the planning of God in this creation story. Paley did not envision what his painting would look like as God had the world planned. The motion used by Igor Paley to create this work using varied brush strokes and pours comes to life in a way that contrasts the established method of creation found in Genesis 1. 

The Second Account

The second story of creation focuses less on the creation of the entire earth and more on mankind. This Yahwistic creation story has God create man, woman, and the animals of the world. Each animal is named and identified. In Igor Paley’s painting it is hard to make out any living creatures aside from the birds on the left-center of the painting. It is nearly impossible for the viewer to identify any other living being than the birds depicted. Paley’s painting at first glance appears to just be paint randomly applied to the canvas using vivid colors. The true meaning behind Paley’s technique to relay his interpretation of Genesis is to show life in general. Instead of having each animal specified during Adam’s naming process, he demonstrates life as one. Each color and stroke interacts with the ones around it to show the creation of all life in one place. Without the presence of human figures, Paley’s painting is centered about the interaction of all life on earth without the focus on humans found in Genesis. It makes us step back and contemplate whether we should be thinking of ourselves as the superior being. 

Why?

Igor Paley is a Jewish artist whose titles of paintings often have Biblical connections such as “The Biblical Deluge,” showing Paley’s fascination with the divine. Art critic Gregory Ostrovsky described the reasons behind Igor Paley’s work as “the eternal craving for unattainable harmony of the earthly and the heavenly spheres.” His art shows his pursuit of existential knowledge and his pursuit to truly explore how he thinks earth came into existence. Paley’s interpretation is indeed a breakaway from the two biblical accounts. Unlike the first account, Paley breaks away from the orderly universe God created for a chaotic depiction of life. Similarly, his interpretation differs from the first by not focusing on human life. His retelling of the creation accounts shows that he has some belief in the message behind the accounts but is trying to explore how he perceives the establishment of life on earth, ergo a third creation account.

Patrick Valerius is a Freshman at Colgate University. He is from Miami, Florida and plans to major in Economics and Mathematics.