Includes over 200 illustrations including 17 color plates and 217 black and white illustrations. Features artists such as Durer, Rembrandt, Dali, Picasso and Michelangelo. This is a book of major importance in the form of a searching dialogue between an eminent art-critic and a Biblical scholar, for whom the history of Christian art is a meeting-point. The centuries-long interaction between Christianity and all forms of art is one of the basic facts in the history of our culture. It produced the splendours of anonymous Byzantine artists and architects, as well as the greatest masterpieces of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was also the driving force behind such unrelated geniuses of more recent times as Delacroix, Blake, Stanley Spencer and Rouault. Eric Newton, who completed his half of the book shortly before his death in 1965, brings his well-known authority to bear on the mosaics, painting, sculpture and buildings which glorify and reflect the Christian faith. This forms a study of iconography, structure and technique as they vary in different epochs and adapt to changes of Christian attitudes. William Neil takes up the relationship between art and Christianity from the religious point of view, tracing chronologically the development of the relationship from the very beginnings of the Christian era to the present day. The novel juxtaposition of authors provides a fresh approach which enhances our understanding and appreciation of one of the most enduring bodies of creative work produced in the world.

newton, eric