Artists Find Inspiration in Bible

Spanning between the time when early Christians lived in Roman catacombs and the 1800s, the Old Testament Apocrypha has been one of the most influential segments of the Bible, as far as artists go. Apparently, a large number of painters and sculptors fell under the spell of how the writings depicted the characters involved, so they translated these impressions that they had into their respective art forms. For example, tapestry wall hangings are some of the most common objects on which the Apocrypha is depicted, especially in Sweden.

In the Scandinavian nation, a large influence of the old writings can be found in Dalecarlia paintings. These are part of a style that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It was a form of painting that was practiced solely by self-taught peasant farmers for about 100 years, starting from 1770, in the region of Dalarna. “One of my most interesting findings is that about 75 Dalecarlia paintings are based on apocryphal texts. The motifs are beautiful with nice colors, and often illustrate how the archangel Raphael was appointed guardian. Many paintings also bear the inscription 'God be with you on your journey' in Swedish,” University of Gothenburg expert Elizabeth Philpot, who has spent a lot of time studying the influence of the Apocrypha on Swedish Art, says.

In most translations of the Bible, this segment is not included, for various reasons. However, since Martin Luther promoted them as being very important, they were included in old Swedish translations of the Bible. By the 1880s, the writings had been removed from most books, but they have experienced a “resurrection” over the past few years. Philpot has been investigating exactly what type of influence these texts had on the overall artistic movement in Sweden. She reveals that many artists used various themes from the Apocrypha with purposes other than illustrating the Bible.

For example, the heroine Susanna was often depicted in the same bathtub with two elderly men. The story in the texts is about a girl who had been wrongfully accused of not being chaste, and it was meant to be used as a teaching. However, for artists of the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, “It was a good excuse to paint a naked woman in a biblical context,” Philpot says, quoted by AlphaGalileo.