JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1812

There are in the history of belief and art instantaneous evolutions of various sorts–most famously of course in creation myths, and these most easily followed today in their images relating Old Testament belief, such as in the creation of the world, or more specifically in the example¹ (left) the creation of light.  But here we see the post-creation part, the vision of creation, the achievement.  It seems as though we don’t really get to see the instantaneous creation half-way-through, or rarely so, the instant-evolution not quite complete.

I guess that we are recommended to believe the stuff in the middle, to assume it complete, to accept the Angel of Presumption to fill in the necessary blanks. (And here I’m not talking about the “Angel of Presumtpion” of Caedmon who refers to Satan in this way–I’m just taling about the Angel that bridges the missing bits in neural napping parts of real and suspect stories and events, the aid to continuity in imagination).

There are exceptions of course, though it seems like there are not many–one good example is the creation of Eve. In many Renaissance examples illustrating the Old Testament story we see Eve as she is emerging from the side of Adam, a snapshot of the process of the creation of woman that is also in some special way also a product of evolutionary development, only instantly. This would seem to remove this from consideration of being an “evolutionary” development, though there are more modern examples of a “faster” evolution, quicker and more reactive adaptation (as in the case of Galapagos finches study by Peter and Rosemary Grant² (Princeton), or the mercurial DNA changes to white flies in response to the introduction of certain bacteria. 

[Source:woodcut from Biblia cum postillis, Nicolai de Lyra, printed in Venice in 1489.]

But the creators of creations myths from which the stories of Adam and Eve have descended are long and very old, and the process of change in these cases didn’t concern them–it was the outcome that was important. 

We do see this process displayed elsewhere to be sure, but it is a very uncommon peep into the creation of certain states of affairs.  Here’s a another good example again coming from the Adam and Eve saga, this one showing the creation of man from clay–“Erschatflung des Menschen aus Lehm”, from the great Liber cronicorum, and printed by Anthonis Koberger in Nurnberg in 1493:

The images showing partial development of a theme do seem to rest more heavily on the shoulders of Eve than anything else I can think of, presently.
There are many images that show events simultaneously, where on a single panel or canvas we will see a painting depicting multiple periods of time in a person’s life, or a depiction of the Fall of Man showing temptation/apple-eating/Archangel banishment–but this is not a depiction of the instantaneous event in the process of creation.