07 works, Today, September 21st, is The Prophet Jonah's day, his story illustrated #263

Unknown author, Attributed to Iran

Jonah and the Whale, circa 1400

Folio from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles)

H. 13 1/4 in. (33.7 cm), W. 19 1/2 in. (49.5 cm)

Ink, gouache, gold and silver on paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jonah the son of Amitai, who, as a prophet disciple, had anointed Jehu and who, therefore, enjoyed the king's benevolence. Once God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh, one of the largest cities of that time and foretell its destruction, because the evil of its inhabitants had reached the limit. The mission, however, was not to Jonah's liking. Nineveh was a bitter enemy of Israel, and Jonah would have liked to see its destruction. If he should succeed in his mission and Nineveh would be spared, it would remain a constant threat to Israel. Jonah therefore decided to seek escape. He boarded a ship that sailed for Tarshish, hoping to forget about his mission. Once the prophet was on the high seas, God caused a storm to break that threatened to tear the ship asunder. The sailors were frightened and each one prayed to his god. Jonah, however, lay down to sleep. The captain of the ship, seeing the sleeping man, went over to him and reprimanded him for sleeping in that fateful hour, instead of praying to God. Meanwhile the sailors drew lots to find out whose fault it was that this misfortune had been brought upon them. 

Nicholas of Verdun

Detail; Jonah in the whale

Verduner altarpiece

Klosterneuburg, Austria

Nicholas of Verdun (c. 1130–c. 1205) was a renowned metalworker, goldsmith and enamelworker active around the years 1180 - 1205. He was born in the Lotharingian city of Verdun, on the western fringe of the German empire. Although he must have maintained a large atelier of his own with numerous assistants, possibly based in Verdun, commissions in Cologne, northern France and outside Vienna required him to travel frequently.

Around the year 1200, a new awareness in northern Europe of Byzantine art, coinciding with a revival of interest in classical art, led to the emergence of a highly classicizing style of figural representation in stone sculpture, metalwork and manuscript illumination. Nicholas of Verdun was a leading practitioner of this short-lived proto-Renaissance as seen in the enameled plaques of the Klosterneunurg Altar and the Three Kings Shrine in Cologne Cathedral. More on Nicholas of Verdun

The lot fell upon Jonah. When the sailors questioned him as to who he was, whence he had come, and what his business was, he told them that he was a Jew and a servant of God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Then the sailors asked what they should do in order to quiet the raging sea and save their ship with all aboard. 

Peter Paul Rubens, (1577–1640)

Jonah Thrown into the Sea

I have no further description, at this time

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England.  More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Jonah replied that all they had to do was to throw him overboard, and the storm would immediately die down, since it had been caused by his refusal to obey God's command. At first the sailors did not want to do as Jonah asked. But the storm grew fiercer and the end was seemingly unavoidable. Very reluctantly, the sailors threw Jonah into the water and the storm ceased at once.

Unknown artist

Jonah thrown up out of the mouth of a great fish

H. Clay Trumbull, “Jonah in Nineveh.” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 2, No.1, 1892

I have no further description, at this time

As soon as Jonah was in the water, God sent a large fish to swallow Jonah alive. Three days and three nights Jonah stayed within the fish. In distress, he prayed to God to save him, and God ordered the fish to eject Jonah and set him on dry land.

Jonah, thrown up out of the mouth of a great fish, in the presence of witnesses, on the coast of Phoenicia, where the fish-god was a favorite object of worship! Such an incident inevitably aroused the mercurial nature of Oriental observers, so that a multitude would be ready to follow the seemingly new avatar of the fish-god, proclaiming the story of his uprising from the sea, as he went on his mission to the city where the fish-god had its very centre of worship” 

Unknown artist

Jonah prophesies to the Ninevites

London, British Library,

I have no further description, at this time

He goes and enters the city, crying, "In forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown." After Jonah has walked across Nineveh, the people of Nineveh begin to believe his word and proclaim a fast. 

Unknown artist

The Repentance of Nineveh’s King Wins Jehovah God’s Commendation
I have no further description, at this time

The king of Nineveh puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes, making a proclamation which decrees fasting, the wearing of sackcloth, prayer, and repentance. God sees their repentant hearts and spares the city at that time. The entire city is humbled and broken with the people in sackcloth and ashes.

Jonah was displeased at this change of events. He had hoped that the doom of Nineveh, had the inhabitants of that city not repented, would forever rid his people Israel of one of its bitter enemies. 

Jack Baumgartner

Jonah and the Gourd Vine, c. 1999

Mdf panel with mahogany veneer

I have no further description, at this time

Jack Baumgartner lives in south central Kansas, with his wife Amy and their four children. As an artist, farmer and woodworker, Jack seeks to cultivate a wide range of disciplines with a high level of skill and authenticity. The daily labor is a holistic gathering and practice of arts, crafts, trades, community and agricultural stewardship. Jack tries to reflect in his life the multifaceted beauty and harmonious complexity He witnesses in creation as a quest into the heart of God. More on Jack Baumgartner

He built himself a hut outside the city in which to live the life of a recluse. Jonah was anxious to know what the fate of the city would be. It was a very hot day, and God made a plant grow to give Jonah shade and protect him from the sting of the hot sun. Jonah was overjoyed with the plant. Then God sent a worm that stung the plant and made it wither. When the protection of the plant had been withdrawn, the sun beat mercilessly upon Jonah's head until he became faint, and wished to die. Then the weary prophet heard God's words: "You are sorry for the plant for which you have neither labored, nor made it grow; which came up in one night and perished in the next; shall I not then, spare Nineveh, the great city, wherein more than twelve times ten thousand people live who do not know how to discern between their right and their left hand (i.e. children), and many animals in addition?" More on The Prophet Jonah

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