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PUBLICATIONS
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The Pictorial Bible I: Settings of the Psalms John Harvey, The Pictorial Bible I: Settings of the Psalms (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2000), pp. 46, ISBN 1-86225-024-3. Introduction The book accompanies the exhibition of the same title. The exhibition comprises visual transliteration of biblical texts into images. The works are informed by a Protestant view of Scripture and a visual tradition predicated upon the illegitimacy of pictorializing spiritual concepts, wherein typographical representations of biblical verses and phrases substitute for religious imagery. The works aim to achieve, what Bible translators call, a 'formal equivalence' between text and image. Accordingly, the paintings and drawings affirm the authority of the texts, surrender to the grammatical structure and order of the Psalms, and uphold their verbal integrity to the letter. The images are neither literal nor emblematic illustrations, rather, they are illuminations, gracing the texts and shedding an intellectual light to reveal, by analogy, the architecture of the texts, aspects of their structural information, patterns of repetition, stresses, unity, symmetry, and proportion - qualities that are not evident when the Psalms are read or heard. The outcome is works that, while outwardly abstract, inhere a religious significance. A copy of the book can be obtained from The Centre for Studies in the Visual Culture of Religion, School of Art, Aberystwyth University. Contact: csvcr@aber.ac.uk |
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