First Glance

Browse in an art gallery and you’ll likely hear someone say, “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like.” But just the opposite is true, says art historian Jane Dillenberger. The more you know about art in general and about the particular painting or sculpture before your eyes, the richer will be your understanding of that artwork. For a moment, perhaps, you can leave your world and get inside the artist’s instead. Join Dillenberger as she immerses herself in the world of two medieval artists, Jan van Eyck and Sandro Botticelli, in “Dual Impressions—Looking for Style and Content in Christian Art.”

Dillenberger’s article is adapted from her book, Style & Content in Christian Art (Crossroad, 1986). Professor emeritus in the visual arts and theology faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, Dillenberger is the author of “Images of God in Western Art,” BR 01:02.

“When Did God Finish Creation?” by Victor Hurowitz, asks a surprising question that proves difficult to answer. Many laypersons may not even be aware of the problem, if they are familiar only with Bibles that say the work of the Creation took six days. But the Hebrew Bible says, “On the seventh day God finished the work which He had been doing” (Genesis 2:2), thus raising the “when” question and leaving us to wonder what God did to finish the work.