Church Times - Art review: Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle)

My latest exhibition review for Church Times , is on Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle):

'The relationship between word and image has been both contested and fruitful ground for Christians; so the exploration of both among the Pre-Raphaelites is of considerable interest, particularly given their interest in Christian imagery and stories. Their literary interests and commitments, however, became a stick with which to beat the Pre-Raphaelites, used by all who championed art as original entity divorced from illustration or derivation.

Art, though, is never simple illustration, as all the works here demonstrate, since images based on sources always reveal and conceal elements of their sources. As I discovered when leading the “Inspired to Follow” course developed at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which is based on paintings from the collection of the National Gallery paired with Bible passages, the disjunctions between the image and the story often opened up the most fruitful conversations, taking one deep into the inspirations of both image and text.'

For more on the Pre-Raphaelites, see my pieces for Artlyst here and here, and my Church Times reviews of John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing and To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters.

See also my articles about this exhibition for Artlyst and Seen and Unseen plus my pieces about the Sainsbury Centre's exhibition programme on life's big questions here, here, here, here, and here.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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Bob Dylan - Knockin' On Heaven's Door.