The New Testament

The stories from the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Christian Bible have been illustrated by artists for many centuries. There are examples of these dating from the second century of the Common Era. Thus there is a wide selection for publishers and authors to draw from when completing anthologies of art such as these two books. Each of the volumes contain '100 Masterpieces' of paintings, taken, in the main, from art dating between the thirteenth and early twentieth centuries, so the reader will not find any really early works here nor any from the later twentieth or twenty-first centuries. The selection of artists, however, is wide and represents Northern art as well as Italian art. Many of the great artists are represented, so that the reader will find paintings by Rubens, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico and El Greco as well as many others. There are also examples of works by less well known painters such as Juan Correa de Vivar and Ilya Repin. William Blake is represented, as is Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and there is a marvellous anonymous illuminated manuscript Nebuchadnezzar Lays Siege to Jerusalem from the British Museum. The quality of the illustrations is good despite the small format of the reproductions and only a small amount of detail is lost. These volumes are thus a feast for those who just want to savour a selection of religious images.