The Formation of Eve
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 2:21
The passage
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Genesis 2:21
About this plate
Adam is asleep in the bottom right corner, stretched along the ground with one arm thrown back behind his head and a cloth over his hips. Eve stands in the middle of the plate, upright, newly made. The forest is thick and dark on both sides of her.
Behind her the trees open onto a burst of light, and every line in the upper half of the plate runs out from it. Doré gives the Lord no face and no hands here. Only that light, with Eve standing in front of it so the rays come past her on both sides.
Then read the verse. It is a surgery. A deep sleep, a rib taken, the flesh closed up again. Doré draws none of that. He skips to the moment after, when the work is finished and she is simply standing there, whole.
And Adam is still asleep. The one thing the verse insists on is that he did not see it done.
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