Jacob Wrestling the Angel: Reflections on the Creative Process through an Ancient Story

An angel appeared to me in a dream last week. He wasn’t a rosy-cheeked cherub playing a golden harp but more of a winged man surrounded by yellow light. At the time I was in the local supermarket, groceries playing a recurring part in my thrilling night-time revelries. Appearing from on high he bathed the bread aisle in a brilliant glow before I woke up. Sadly I have a feeble ability to recollect my dreams so if he said anything meaningful it was lost to me. That alone suggests it was no beatific vision from God. A less divinely ordained explanation comes in the fact that I have been thinking about angels recently, more specifically the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel as described in the Book of Genesis. The story has been a rich source of material for artists interested in ideas of struggle and transformation, ideas which I’d like to unpack here.  

Paul Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon (1888), Photo: National Galleries of Scotland

The strange, enigmatic story comes at a time when the patriarch Jacob has been told that his brother is coming to meet him backed by four hundred men. This is the first time the brothers have met since Esau vowed to kill Jacob after the latter tricked him out of his birthright. At the time, a birthright was not merely a blessing but a pledge of inheritance rights and leadership of the family - wealth and power in other words. Jacob has stolen his brother’s rights as the first-born son by pretending to be Esau, taking advantage of their father’s poor eyesight. To rub salt in the wound the act of deception was carried out whilst Esau was out hunting at their father’s request. Esau goes through four stages of grief, notably anger and weeping, before committing to murder his brother. Jacob only escapes by his mother urging him to flee. 

Twenty years later, on hearing the news of his sibling’s impending arrival, Jacob understandably fears the worst, prays earnestly to God and desperately sends ahead gifts of over four hundred different livestock to Esau. It is at this point, after crossing a river, that ‘Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day’ [Genesis 32:24]. Jacob refuses to give up until he is blessed by the man whom Jacob calls God and is later identified as an angel [Hosea 12:4]. As the sun comes up, Jacob is transformed himself, leaving with a new name given to him by his opponent, ‘Israel’, and a physical impairment, a hip dislocation. 

Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel (1940-1)

This extraordinary story has appealed to artists, including myself, in its mysterious, dreamlike sequence. The many artistic interpretations include Gustave Doré’s engraving as part of his illustrations of the Bible (1855), Rembrandt’s tender painting (1659), Jacob Epstein’s alabaster sculpture (1940–1) and Vision After the Sermon (1888) by Paul Gauguin. One of Gauguin’s most famous works, his painting distorts reality to heighten the emotional depth. The ground is a flat flaming red, a tree trunk dissects the composition at a diagonal and a group of women in contemporary dress watch the action in earnest. In a letter to Van Gogh, Gauguin wrote: ‘I think I have achieved a great rustic and superstitious simplicity in the figures. The whole is very severe.’ There is a fierce tenacity to the painting, in the women praying as the angel grips Jacob’s neck and obstructs his arms as the ground seems to burn beneath them. We are in the throes of the tussle, the outcome uncertain and vital. I prefer it to Doré’s print, where an angel stands firm before a struggling Jacob, barely breaking a sweat. Gauguin’s work also exhibits greater thrust than Epstein’s sculpture, an unconventional interpretation depicting a sturdy angel propping up an exhausted Jacob. Here, Jacob seems about to collapse, his limp hands exposing his weakness despite his extremely chunky thighs. Something of the urgency and fight has been lost, perhaps showing the end of fight as the sun rises or the moment Jacob’s hip is forced out of joint.

What is the incident all about? And why does it happen at this point, against the dark looming backdrop of a fraternal collision? In many ways, I see the story as a metaphor for both the process of creation and of letting go of material possessions. The narrative embodies themes of struggle, wrestling with meaning along with inspiration, vulnerability, and transformation in faith. Within the context of the wider narrative, Jacob wrestles not only with an angel but also his internal and historical self. In this way, whether it actually occurred or not is beside the point. Indeed, the whole incident could be interpreted as a dream with the angel representing something of Jacob’s inner spirit or the spirit of God within. Far more important is how Jacob emerges. All his life he has wanted to be like Esau, the archetypal hero and strong man preferred by their father, good at hunting and ‘a man of the field’ [Genesis 25:27]. Esau is everything Jacob is not, the quintessential manly man who would be found pumping dumbbells and axe throwing if he were around today. By contrast, Jacob is but a quiet man born struggling in the womb and described as ‘dwelling in tents’ (apparently indicative of a gentle spirit back then, ironic perhaps as camping today is seen as relatively adventurous. Perhaps Jacob had a very plush tent full of knitting and throws).

Gustave Doré, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1855)

The name ‘Jacob’ means ‘supplanter’ and has the same root as the Hebrew words for deceitful, sly and crooked. From the womb, he is described as ‘with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob’ [Genesis 25:26]. In wrestling with the angel his name, and therefore his identity, is transformed to ‘Israel’, meaning ‘One who wrestles with God’. No longer is he a man failing to match up to his brother, but instead he is characterised as one who grapples with the divine. No longer is his story determined by his fraudulent mistake but it is hauled out of villainy and propelled heavenwards to something much greater. His consciousness, or his soul, is reoriented upwards and outwards towards the infinite. Transformed, albeit at the cost of skeletal disfigurement, Jacob goes on to reconcile himself to Esau the next day. He urges his brother to accept his gifts, a symbol of the wealth and power he previously stole. as well as bowing down at his feet, an act of reverence and submission. He is released from his fraternal rivalry and instead reminded and called to hold onto God, ending the section by building an altar to mark this significant moment of transformation.

Myself mid-spar

The making of art can be conceptualised as a ritualistic process of transformation, often involving letting go of material possessions. The moment at which Jacob becomes Israel, he is set on a new path which will come to define him and his family, letting go of his bad blood and a portion of his wealth by relinquishing it to Esau. Similarly, choosing to follow an artistic calling, one that doesn’t clamour for fame and glossy champagne openings, is to relinquish the attractions of wealth and power which held sway over both brothers. This type of profound transformation must involve total commitment. There is an intense focus involved when painting which is why I’ve often heard artists say they won't play music or listen to podcasts whilst working in case they lose that elusive flow.

I used to train in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and experienced the momentary lapses in concentration that would mean having my arm pinned back painfully or finding my head under someone’s sweaty armpit - unwillingness to wriggle around a stranger’s sweaty torso being one of the reasons I now stick to striking combat. The time really flies when the painting process is in full flow, just as when sparring an opponent. I’ve had the privilege of sparring people at a similar level in Muay Thai on multiple occasions and there is a unique sense of energy and dynamism to the experience that is difficult to replicate. It’s a completely different experience to practicing with someone new to the art or even much more experienced, a sweet spot that makes all the kicks to the gut worth it. It is suggested that the angel proved a perfect match for Jacob (perhaps deliberately meeting Jacob at a comparable level), and their equal footing gave them the energy and impetus to keep battling from dusk to dawn, perhaps not realising the passing time. A breakthrough in an artwork gives a similar burst of life to an otherwise stale or weak painting. Being fully engaged is often the feeling of being on the precipice of such a moment, in the long wrestle with composition, content, colour and form.

The trope of the tortured artist has been rightly disparaged. But a degree of struggle is often necessary to create richer art, rooted in the reality of life and free of complacency. The impulse to create better and more beautiful things does not always end well. If the aim is to reach upwards and outwards towards the infinite how often will we fail? My own experience is that making art often feels like an endless struggle. Like combat, there is a high risk of defeat and, more often than not, an idea that seemed promising ends up a disappointment on paper or not fully formed when returned to a day later. It is to rely on the swings of inspiration, which can be said to be wrestling with God, for where do ideas really come from? From personal experience, ideas have hit me over the head whilst on a walk or otherwise crept up in the earnest silence of experimenting with materials. There is a lot of observing, agonising and yearning for elements to click. Like wrestling a sibling, or training in martial combat, there is a playful aspect, when conducted with humility and courage on both sides. A prerequisite is some degree of personal responsibility to practice combined with an openness to ideas but the science of creativity and the mind’s ability to connect and link disparate elements is far from fully understood. 

The many artists who were inspired to interpret this story were no strangers to struggle and hostility. At forty-two, depressed by his lack of recognition and money as well as his spiralling mental state, Gauguin said, “What can we do but fume and grapple with these difficulties; when beaten, get up and go on again. For ever and ever. At bottom painting is like man, and mortal living is always in conflict with its own flesh.” [Gauguin to Émile Bernard, Pont Aven, early Sep 1889.] Gauguin tried to donate Vision of the Sermon to a chapel in Pont-Aven, France, where he was staying at the time. He saw it as a perfect fit, harmonising the ancient surroundings with a contemporary painting but the work was rejected for not being a truly religious interpretation. When later exhibited in Belgium it was “received with the greatest hilarity…[and] bursts of laughter” with people presuming that he was mocking them. Likewise, Epstein faced criticism all his life, with his unusually proportioned works often seen as freakish oddities. His works were denounced and he was accused of being an enemy of religion, beauty, and truth. Both artists pushed the boundaries of art of their time, being inspired by Asian and Pacific Island aesthetics, alongside Western traditions. The costs of their innovations included criticism, financial struggle and mental battles. 

In the cynical face of defeat, it is worth holding on to the concept of the process being more important than the end result. In the story, Jacob is renamed as one who ‘wrestles with God’, not one who was injured or blessed by God - the result - but one who continues to battle. The action of wrestling itself is predominant, otherwise Jacob could have been renamed ‘dislocated hip’ or ‘one who limps’. In the act of creating, it is often a struggle to see the process as more than a means. The story of Jacob wrestling provides an emboldening insight into the characterisation of God’s people as struggling and embattled but with the privilege of meaningfully striving with God himself, rather than an oppressive battle against temptations of fame and wealth. “There is a road to Calvary that all artists must tread” Gauguin wrote to Van Gogh in one of his more melancholic moods. [Gauguin to Vincent Van Gogh, c.10 Sep 1888.] Art, as a distillation of life itself and a concentration of human experience, is often a story of struggle and transformation. The artist’s practice is ever-evolving, full of experimentation and failure interspersed with heartening moments of creative flow. Characteristics like these that make this bizarre but captivatingly complex story one that has long appealed to artists and held sway over dreams.