It is one thing to produce a flat painting of portions of Revelation. It is quite another to do textured tapestries of Revelation with brilliant colors. Contrast this with black light on flat images… If you look closely at the following woven piece of tapestry you will see not only St. John, but also tanks and other weapons of war. Irene is juxtaposing John’s visions of violence and war with modern images of the same. Notice the images of creation... Read more

It was apparently John Muir, who said words to the effect of: ‘we look at life from the back side of the tapestry. Ordinarily, what we see is loose threads, knots and dangling things. But occasionally the light comes through the tapestry and we see the larger design of darks and lights woven together.’ Here is sample of what the back side of a portion of Irene’s tapestry looks like under a certain light. The goal in part seems to... Read more

It was Marshall MacLuhan who said— ‘the medium is the message’, and certainly all real artists are deeply concerned with the media in which they compose their work. Rightly so. The medium at a minimum conveys the message, and if done wrongly can obscure or conflict with the message. Irene decided she wanted to work with luminous fibers and thread. But what happens when one uses very opaque material? Look very closely at the next image. The following image was... Read more

Below you will find some of the precursors in various media, ranging from wood cuts to paintings to tapestries to fresco’s on stone depicting Revelation. It is interesting that the Reformers mostly shied away from this book. Revelation is the only NT book Calvin didn’t do a commentary on, and John Wesley was not very certain how it should be interpreted, deferring to the work of Johannes Bengel on the matter. (Due to a flaw in Word Press, you’ll need... Read more

In this post and what follows, I am providing some snapshots of various parts of the Tapestry of Light exhibit, for those who cannot come and see it in person. The problem is, that one needs to see the tapestries in various sorts of light including black light to get the full effect. There were a variety of previous works of art that inspired this project of Irene Barberis—-here she is at the MOTB installation of the exhibit. The inspiration... Read more

You are all cordially invited not only to come see Irene Barberis’ remarkable artistic work on various tapestries depicting the book of Revelation for the 21rst century, but this is your invitation to come to a conference which brings together art, literature, and Biblical scholars discussing Revelation, including yours truly. The conference properly will be on October 10th, and I encourage you to contact MOTB for tickets, or simply go on the website for the Museum of the Bible. A... Read more

A several year study at MIT and elsewhere of the possible genetic origins of same sex sexual orientation has produced various reactions in the last month or so. Here is one report of the study… https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/30/health/gay-gene-study-trnd/index.html And here is another…. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/science/gay-gene-sex.html The study basically concludes that a single gay gene cannot be isolated, but that there seem to be several genes involved in this disposition. But this is not all. The study also concludes that there are environmental and social... Read more

This one day conference is at the Museum of the Bible at 400 4th St. SW in Washington, D.C. Ya’ll come. BW3 Read more

At first glance, you might not realize this famous Vermeer painting is a work of religious art…. but look carefully. Notice the woman holding a scales in her hand… and behind her on the wall… a painting of the Last Judgment. The woman is thus depicted as reflecting on her ultimate fate or destiny. From the studio of Rembrandt (with the same sort of use of light and shadow as the master himself) comes a painting of the lowering of... Read more

While lots of people know all about the impressive Impressionist collection at the National Gallery, as well as many others, less well known is that there is a considerable amount of Christian art in the museum as well. For example, here’s the famous Salvador Dali surrealist painting of the Last Supper, or maybe a meal with a see through risen Jesus…. Hendrik Goltzius a 16th century Dutch painter offers us a picture of the moment when Adam and Eve ‘fell’…... Read more