Programme
Some of the most engaging and creative insights into biblical narrative are found in paintings that adorn national and provincial galleries throughout Europe. They are a reminder that frequently our reading and understanding of biblical stories are influenced by our encounter with and response to the cultural, especially artistic, representations of a passage.
The aims of the research programme, The Bible and the Visual Arts, are to locate distinctive and representative appropriations of biblical paintings in galleries across Europe, draw parallels between ways in which biblical texts engage the reader and biblical paintings the viewer, and to create methodologies that ensure that visual interpretations of the bible play a central role in the 21st century in challenging (or supporting) traditional readings of biblical characters and plots.
The benefit of such a research area is that it is multidisciplinary and makes use of insights from a range of disciplines including art history, psychology, gender studies, and postcolonial studies.