John Piper (1903-1992) was an artist of enormous range. He is best known for his paintings, particularly his studies of buildings, but his work included print-making, photography, book illustration, stained glass, tapestry and textile design, writing and reviewing, and stage design. He was already an established artist when he was asked to design the set for Stephen Spender's play Trial of a Judge at the Unity Theatre (1938), and he continued to design for the stage throughout his life. Much of his work was for opera and ballet. He created sets and costumes for the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company and for opera at Glyndebourne, Aldburgh and Covent Garden. The first productions of Benjamin Britten's operas The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw, Billy Budd, Death in Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream were all designed by Piper.

In 1948 Piper designed the dance work Job, based on the Old Testament story and on William Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job (1825). The piece was devised by Geoffrey Keynes, an authority on the works of Blake. He and his sister-in-law, the artist Gwen Raverat, created the scenario for the work which was first presented in 1930 at the Norfolk and Norwich Musical Festival. The music was by Vaughan Williams, who stipulated that the production should not be called a ballet, and so it became a Masque for Dancing. The scenario was seen by the choreographer Ninette de Valois who created a new production of Job for the Sadler's Wells Ballet. It was performed in 1931 with designs by Gwen Raverat which reproduced Blake's engravings.

Raverat's sets were lost in World War II so when de Valois revived and revised Job in 1948, she commissioned new settings and costumes from John Piper. Piper interpreted Blake's illustrations in his own distinctive style and created backdrops which were less literal than Raverat's. The Masque for Dancing tells the story in eight scenes, showing how God (interpreted as Job's spiritual self) permits Satan to test the faith of the virtuous Job. In the fourth scene Satan disturbs Job's sleep with visions of War, Pestilence and Death. Piper designed a backdrop representing Hell, which takes its line of flames from Blake's 11th engraving ('With Dreams upon my bed thou searest and affrightest me with Visions') and uses the shape of the hills prominent in other illustrations, but, as in his paintings, Piper captures the movement of clouds, the texture of rocks and the quality of the light. The reviewer of The Times said of the designs that 'the colours glow with Blake's inner fire'.