TY - BOOK AU - Price,David TI - In the beginning was the image: art and the Reformation Bible SN - 9780190074401 AV - BS447 .P75 2021 U1 - 246 23 PY - 2021///] CY - New York, NY, United States of America PB - Oxford University Press KW - Bible KW - History KW - 16th century KW - 17th century KW - Renaissance KW - Reformation KW - Arts in the Bible KW - Christianity and art KW - Fellow KW - Carol Kahn Strauss Fellow in Jewish Studies KW - Class of Fall 2023 N1 - Includes bibliographical references N2 - "This pioneering study focuses on the decisive contributions by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Hans Holbein the Younger to the popular promotion of the printed Bible and, beyond that, to the evangelical impulses that transformed ecclesiastical art. The Renaissance, always recognized as a time of artistic and theological foment for Christianity, also witnessed a visual re-formation of the Bible. Material culture played its part since the printing press allowed proliferation of biblical images and texts on a previously unimaginable scale. Contrary to commonly accepted claims that the Reformation resulted in the atrophy of art, artists offered richly visual experiences for the biblical culture of the new Protestant churches. This book further explicitly explores the paradox of the Bible's cultural status. The Bible, authority for Christian culture, shattered the unity of Christianity with its divergent editions and translations. Reformation art required new approaches to accommodate confessional and textual diversity. Rulers, theologians, and artists created new Bibles as foundations for transformative socio-political movements. In Price's richly nuanced study, a new understanding emerges of how Dürer, Cranach, and Holbein invented biblical iconographies as they promoted the relationship of biblicism to faith and political authority"-- ER -