By The Book - Art Inspired by the Bible

Genesis II by Harriet Finck

Arts Guild New Jersey presents BY THE BOOK, an exhibition featuring nine artists creating artworks inspired by literature and the Bible. The exhibit will be held at 1670 Irving Street, Rahway, NJ.

February 17 till March 14, 2013.

Hours: Saturdays & Sundays, 1- 4 PM; Mondays- Thursdays 10 - 3 PM. 

Featured Artists: Howard Lerner, Lou Storey, Harriet Finck, Tracie Fracasso, Winston Young, Adel Gorgy, Kenneth Kaplowitz, Siona Benjamin and Robert Eustace.

Siona Benjamin

During the course of Western Art History, there have been several ages when many of the great works of art produced were inspired by the Bible, and stories were communicated  

Bible, and stories were communicated to the masses through

these artworks in the years before the advent of the printing press, and the level of literacy permitted many people to read the stories directly from a printed volume. Certainly this is true during the Middle Ages and much of the Renaissance in Europe.

During the many years since then, great artists such as Rembrandt, William Blake (who not only illustrated Poems, but wrote them), Eugene Delacroix (in his drawings based on the plays of Shakespeare) and several other very notable masters were inspired to create visual artworks based on literature. The practice has continued to the present day. During the 70's, Larry Rivers created a series of paintings based on the violence in Shakespeare's dramatic plays. Picasso illustrated the poetry of Guilluame Apollinaire, and David Hockney in his early years created a series based on "the Blue Guitar" by the Egyptian poet Kefavy.

Certainly in earlier ages, the point of the great artworks was intended to illustrate stories and instruct the people about their literary source---the Bible. In later years the inspiration of the Bible and in other cases, plays or poetry was often to create avisual image corresponding to the ideas in the source material, while not serving as mere illustration of the

source materials.

The BY THE BOOK exhibit at Arts Guild New Jersey brings together the varied artworks of nine artists who still find that literature---another art form----can serve as a stepping stone to the creation of complex visual works which can communicate much of the impression of their literary sources.

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