Days of Creation - Third

Days of Creation — Third (1870) at Harvard Art Museums belongs to the six-panel watercolor series Burne-Jones made depicting the successive days of creation from the book of Genesis. Each panel shows an angel holding a crystal sphere in which the relevant day's creation is reflected — on the third day, the separation of earth and sea and the creation of plant life. The series was executed in watercolor for the Kelmscott Press circle and reflects Burne-Jones's deep engagement with William Morris's project of reviving medieval craft tradition in book arts and decorative work. The sequential panel format, with each day given an identical compositional structure of angel and sphere, creates a meditation on progression and repetition that is formally related to his later work in stained glass. Harvard's acquisition of individual panels from this series reflects the dispersal of the original sequence through the market.

Watercolor on paper requires careful management of the translucent medium's inherent properties — the crystal sphere provides a focal point where Burne-Jones could explore transparency and refraction within the overall flat, decorative surface. The angel figures are built with repeated, assured strokes that reflect the series' meditative, sequential production process.