Bible Artists

Ivan Aivazovsky

1817–1900

Armenian

Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900) was an Armenian painter of the Russian Empire who became one of the nineteenth century's most celebrated painters of the sea. Born in the Black Sea port of Feodosia, he made water the central subject of a remarkably prolific career. Aivazovsky also turned repeatedly to biblical themes. Stories involving the sea were particularl...

William Blake

1757–1827

British

William Blake (1757–1827) was a British poet, engraver, painter, and visionary artist whose work joined words and images in an intensely personal form of religious expression. Biblical subjects occupied an important place throughout his career, but Blake approached Scripture differently from conventional illustrators. Some works depict identifiable biblic...

Sandro Botticelli

1445–1510

Italian

Sandro Botticelli (about 1445–1510) was a Florentine painter whose graceful figures and expressive use of line made him one of the most distinctive artists of the Italian Renaissance. Although now widely known for mythological paintings such as Primavera and The Birth of Venus, religious subjects occupied a major place throughout his career. His workshop...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

c. 1525–1569

Flemish

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–1569) was a Flemish painter and draftsman whose landscapes and scenes of everyday life transformed sixteenth-century Netherlandish art. Biblical subjects form an important part of his relatively small surviving body of paintings. Bruegel frequently placed events from Scripture within expansive landscapes or crowded commun...

Edward Burne-Jones

1833–1898

British

Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the second generation of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He originally went to Oxford intending to pursue a religious vocation but abandoned that plan to become an artist. Biblical and Christian subjects remained important throughout his career, especially in designs for church...

Caravaggio

1571–1610

Italian

Caravaggio (1571–1610), born Michelangelo Merisi, was an Italian painter whose radical naturalism transformed European religious art. He presented biblical events with an immediacy that was startling to contemporary viewers. Saints and apostles could appear as ordinary people with weathered faces and worn clothing. Sacred events unfold in dark, recognizab...

Lucas Cranach the Elder

1472–1553

German

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) was a German painter and printmaker whose long career spanned the transition from late medieval religious culture to the Protestant Reformation. He became court painter to the Electors of Saxony in Wittenberg and developed one of the most productive artistic workshops in sixteenth-century Germany. Biblical subjects occu...

Gustave Doré

1832–1883

French

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was a French artist and one of the most celebrated book illustrators of the nineteenth century. He illustrated works by many major authors, but his images for the Bible became some of his most enduring creations. In 1866, La Grande Bible de Tours appeared with 241 illustrations designed by Doré and reproduced as wood engravings. H...

Duccio

c. 1250/55–1318/19

Italian

Duccio (c. 1250/55–1318/19), also known as Duccio di Buoninsegna, was the leading painter of Siena around the beginning of the fourteenth century. His art developed from Byzantine traditions while incorporating greater tenderness, human interaction, architectural space, and influences from Gothic art. Biblical subjects dominate his surviving work. His gre...

Albrecht Dürer

1471–1528

German

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, and writer who became one of the leading artists of the Northern Renaissance. Biblical subjects occupied a major place in his work. Dürer was particularly important for demonstrating that woodcuts and engravings could communicate religious narratives with extraordinary artistic sophis...

El Greco

1541–1614

Greek

El Greco (1541–1614), born Domenikos Theotokopoulos, was a Greek painter whose religious art developed through an unusual combination of Byzantine, Italian Renaissance, and Spanish influences. He began his career in Crete as a painter of icons before moving to Venice and Rome. He eventually settled in Toledo, where religious commissions became the center...

Adam Elsheimer

1578–1610

German

Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610) was a German painter whose small paintings on copper had an influence far greater than their size or number might suggest. Born in Frankfurt, he traveled to Italy and spent the final decade of his short life in Rome. Elsheimer became particularly important for his treatment of landscape and light. Biblical figures often occupy r...