Imaging the Bible in Wales

Martin Crampin contacted me recently to tell me about some research that has been going on in Wales.

From 2005-8 he worked as Artist, Designer and Researcher on the Imaging the Bible in Wales Project, based in the Theology Department of the University of Wales, Lampeter. The project focussed on artworks in Wales which depicted or were inspired by the biblical narrative from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One outcome of the project was an archive of images which are catalogued and available online at: http://imagingthebible.llgc.org.uk/.

He writes that much of the new research was from places of worship in Wales, but they also did look at fine artists whose work is held in museum collections. One of the things which struck him was the number of twentieth century artists whose religious work has been almost totally overlooked by most commentators (not that there are a vast number of art historians working in Wales). Often these religious themes stemmed from their personal faith, something which again was not well known.

Welsh life and culture has been inextricably bound to the Bible, evident in the vast array of visual expressions of biblical themes found throughout the principality. However, such visual expressions are fast disappearing as churches, chapels and synagogues, often their original and only location, fall into disuse. Therefore this urgent project (focussed on 1825–1975), analysed the social, political and theological questions raised by Welsh biblical visual culture so that its contribution to the intellectual, artistic and cultural heritage of Wales can be recognized and preserved.

Biblical Art in Wales is a lavishly illustrated book with 17 contributors drawn from the world of Biblical Studies, Art History and Social & Cultural History which is another outcome from the project. The book contains analyses of the material discussed at two major project conferences (September 2006 and April 2008) as well as contextual information from a number of additional authoritative commentators.

Throughout Wales, the Bible has been interpreted and illustrated in a surprisingly wide range of media: in paint and sculpture, needlework and ceramic, woodcarving and engraving. The illustrations in the book (some 300 of which are in colour) include examples from several media and demonstrate how the process of ‘visual exegesis’ was an important feature of religious and cultural life in Wales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The volume is accompanied by a DVD, written and produced by Crampin with the Project Research Fellow Dr John Morgan-Guy, which adds a further interpretative dimension. It contains over 600 images and allows the reader to explore further subjects introduced in the book, arranged and structured as seven key representative themes such as Word and Image, the Bible in the Welsh Landscape, Domestic Piety, and so on.



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The Alarm - New South Wales.