Tag: National Gallery

Hagar and Ishmael, as imagined by the 17th century Dutch Catholic painter Gabriel Metsu, are literally in the doghouse.

In an instance of form following content, Joseph Mallord William Turner's "The Fifth Plague of Egypt" was recently exiled from its home at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for the exhibit "J.M.W. Turner," which was organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Dallas Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, in association with London's Tate Britain. According to the wall texts from both the exhibit and the painting's permanent home in Indianapolis, the title Turner selected for his biblical study features one of art history's greatest typos.

When charged by the Prophetess Deborah, wife of Lapidoth, in Judges to free the Jews from the tyranny of Sisera, general of the Canaanite king Jacin's army, Barak the son of Abinoam famously responded with the biblical equivalent of "I'm right behind you." Deborah agreed to accompany Barak to Kedesh but told him Sisera would die by a woman's hand. Barak accepted the terms, and Sisera was eventually lured into Yael's tent, where she fed him milk to make him drowsy and drove a tent peg through his head.

When Abraham built the altar on Mount Moriah, it must have been very painful to know each step brought him closer to losing Isaac, whom the Bible goes out of its way to call his "only son, whom he loved."

Rembrandt's etching, Abraham Entertaining the Angels, is a pristine jewel of Biblical narrative.

Walking out of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. the stench of mass murder was overpowering.