Scripture for the Eyes

This major scholarly publication accompanies the exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art, New York in Summer 2009 focusing attention on the extraordinary array of biblical prints produced in the Low Countries during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a time of dynamic religious and political change. In particular, the book studies the crucial role played by scriptural prints in the complex processes of religious self-formation that dominated early modern European culture. In cities such as Antwerp and Amsterdam, prints were the primary medium for the invention and dissemination of biblical imagery. Far from simply following artistic developments in the monumental arts, prints of Old and New Testament subjects were agents of innovation in their own right, offering a lens through which the Bible was received and interpreted. This volume features over 130 prints, woodcuts and engravings by Lucas van Leyden, Jan Swart van Groningen, Maarten van Heemskerck, Philips Galle, Hendrick Goltzius and Hieronymus Wierix, among others.