Latest essay
Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names
A baker’s son, candlelit saints, and the paintings that survived under other artists’ names.
40-minute read
Read the essayOriginal essays from Visio Divina
The Bible Art Blog
Close readings of Scripture and the paintings it inspired, with biblical text, Christian tradition, and artistic imagination kept carefully in view.
The Newborn, Georges de La Tour
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More essays
William Holman Hunt’s Bible Paintings: A Goat, a Gun and The Light of the World
Nineteen paintings, a journey to the Dead Sea, and the arguments that followed Hunt’s pictures of Christ.
34-minute read10 Old Testament Prophecies About Jesus, and the Paintings That Show Them
A small town, a road out of Egypt, a borrowed donkey, thirty coins, a cry from the cross and an empty tomb.
15-minute readWas Van Gogh a Christian? His Faith in 11 Paintings, and the Café Terrace “Last Supper”
A pastor’s son who preached, a missionary who was let go, a painter who walked out of church and kept writing about Christ. What his own letters say, and whether a Last Supper is hiding on that café terrace.
34-minute readTop 10 John Martin Paintings of Biblical Judgment, Explained
Ten paintings of warning, deliverance, catastrophe, and the final reckoning—with the Bible stories and surprising details behind them.
15-minute readWas Jesus a Feminist? How Jesus Treated Women, in 10 Paintings
The word is modern, but the surprise is in the Gospels. Ten moments with women, each paired with a 19th- or 20th-century painting, and the people in the room who objected.
21-minute readTop 20 Beautiful Annunciation Paintings, Explained
Gothic elegance, Renaissance experiments, and modern surprises: the styles and stories that make these twenty paintings worth knowing.
10-minute readTop 10 Visitation Paintings Explained: When Mary Meets Elizabeth
From Giotto’s quiet intensity to Pontormo’s electric colour: the styles and stories behind ten paintings of Mary and Elizabeth.
6-minute readHenry Ossawa Tanner’s The Annunciation, Explained: The Angel Is a Column of Light
A girl on the edge of a rumpled bed, a visitor with no wings, and the first Tanner to enter an American museum.
12-minute readMary Magdalene at the Empty Tomb: 12 Paintings, from Giotto to Tanner
All four Gospels put her at the tomb on Easter morning. Twelve painters, six centuries, and the woman who stayed when the others went home.
17-minute read
