In the Beauty of Holiness

This lavishly illustrated book researched for over 40 years tells the fascinating story of art and the Bible in Western culture, with nearly 150 colour images. The approach is chronological, with a break at 1500 around the Reformation. This is the point at which a disjunction of beauty and holiness occurred, illustrated with erotic depictions of David and Bathsheba as well as controversies surrounding nudes in the Sistine Chapel. These paintings also give rise to reflection on changing concepts of beauty, as also noted by Kenneth Clark in his book on the nude. Fascinatingly, there are 14 Hebrew words for beauty, while the main Greek word used in the new Testament is kalos, which necessarily has fewer connotations. The discussion of the paradoxical beauty of the cross leads on to beauty and proportion in buildings, then the beauty of light in stained-glass, the fashion for frescoes and the classic complex altarpieces such as the Isenheim Altar by Grunewald, which I visited in Colmar in 1978.

After 1500, there is a different spirit and attitude to faith, a chapter on romantic religion and the sublime, featuring William Wordsworth and Caspar David Friedrich, including a number of paintings I did not know. The 19th-century sees the Pre-Raphaelites and, perhaps more surprisingly, Van Gogh and Gauguin. The 20th century is represented by Munch, Picasso, Ernst and Dali. Then we move on finally to the return of the transcendentals - those whose art is underpinned by goodness, truth and beauty and here we have Rouault, Chagall and a wonderful artist called Arcabas, born in 1927 and whose paintings all striking in their use of light. This must be the definitive study on this topic and can be highly recommended to any reader an interest in the history of sacred art.