Last January, we published a post on Art and Time which featured the work of Dr. Chloe Reddaway. Dr. Reddaway is involved in a new project which readers of The Marian Room might find interesting. The project is named The Visual Commentary on Scripture. The aim of The Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is noted on its home page in the following:
The Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries.
The VCS combines three academic disciplines: theology, art history, and biblical scholarship. While the project’s main commitment is to theology, it is responsibly informed by the latter two disciplines.
Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.
The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.
Here is a sampling of a page from this project featuring Dr. Reddaway. On this page Dr. Reddaway examines a painting of the Annunciation, and expounds on it for the viewer/reader.
As one who loves art as it relates to the Bible, I find this project to be of great interest; and hope it will be an aid in restoring our culture, and our world.
You may sign up for a free newsletter from the VCS to keep abreast of developments as the project advances (see bottom of their homepage).
May you have a good day.
~SCF
~Image: an example of religious art, The Annunciation by Leonardo Da Vinci, source.
