HOLY SHOW: They may be breaking the second Commandment in the strictest sense, but the 39 artists commissioned by the Chester Beatty Library to bring their vision to the Hewbrew Bible have committed a bigger sin - that of conventional tameness, says Aidan Dunne
Like Shakespeare, the Bible is often quoted. And for visual artists in the West over the centuries, it has been a veritable dictionary of narrative iconography. There is a certain irony here, because the second of the 10 Commandments forbids the production of any graven image, or "the likeness of anything in the Heaven above, or on the Earth beneath, or in the waters under the Earth". From that to the cornucopia of biblical imagery that forms the substance of much of Western art is a volte face dramatic enough to give a politician pause for thought.
As Rabbi Julia Neuberger observes in her introduction to the Chester Beatty's new exhibition, Holy Show, taken at face value, the second Commandment pretty much puts the kibosh on the whole thing.
In practice, there was a range of responses to this prohibition, and, in the evolving Christian tradition, a progressive amelioration of the most extreme line of interpretation. But Neuberger zeroes in on the core of the problem. The commandment forbids representation, and Neuberger suggests that the underlying anxiety relates to the power of representations of the human form.
It is a well-founded anxiety. From the biblical perspective, the cult of celebrity is nothing more than a procession of false gods, a phenomenon mobilised and enabled by the power of the reproduced image. We are suckers for images and, as Neuberger notes, in Holy Show "the human form is everywhere", from Eve to, well, to Desperate Dan, as it happens. Desperate Dan? As Neuberger sees it, the presence of John Kindness's Desperate Dan(iel) is entirely consistent with the Jewish tradition of biblical scholarship involving aggadic midrash, that is, interpretation by telling, interpretation of the text by means of telling stories on stories. One story illuminates another. Which is not a bad description of the Bible.
For Holy Show, the Graphic Studio was invited to organise 39 artists to "make a print in response to the Christian Old Testament/Hebrew Bible in the context of the Chester Beatty collection". The collection is rich in this, as in so many other areas (including its Korans) and contains some of the rarest extant examples of biblical texts in papyrus form, as well as early copies of many Old and New Testament books.
Chester Beatty also collected prints. While, as the curator of the library's Western Collections, Charles Horton, says, Beatty's collection of European prints was in many respects "an extension" of his passion for illustrated books, it numbers more than 35,000 individual items, making it the largest collection of Old Master prints in Ireland.
Some of Beatty's prints, acquired in Ireland, were made in the Graphic Studio, so it seems appropriate the studio should play a central role in this project. The line-up of artists includes both printmakers per se and artists better known for their work in other media, who have made prints at the Graphic Studio. They have all responded thoughtfully, some more successfully or imaginatively than others. Most cite chapter and verse and the references are generally straightforward.
The creation was, predictably, an attractive proposition for several, including Patrick Scott, whose elegant hieroglyphic uses his characteristic pictorial vocabulary to good effect in a representation of the creation of night and day, sun and moon. Lars Nyberg's subtle account of the moment of division between the heavens and the sea was inspired by his time at the Ballinglen Foundation in north Co Mayo, and there is a sense of the new day in his image. Catherine Lynch's Eve is a witty response to Lucas Cranach's painting of Eve leading Adam into temptation in the Garden of Eden.
The flood emerges as a favourite theme and prompts some of the best work, including Hughie O'Donoghue's richly textural, dark, watery evocation of the Ark in the midst of the deluge, which ties in seamlessly with his prior, metaphorically charged treatments of perilous sea voyages.
Niall Naessens's beautifully crisp, cross-hatched prints based on Dublin Bay made the subject a natural for him, and he has produced a fine, straightforward account of the moment when God stops the rain. The sea is also a staple theme for James Allen and his image of the dove aloft over a water-covered world is strong.
The story of Susanna and the Elders has been popular in art from the time of the Renaissance, because of its themes of voyeurism, guilt and, not least, the opportunity it presents to depict the nude heroine. Andrew Folan's clothed Susanna turns the tables by spying on the bathing Elders. Colin Martin's Susanna, wrapped in a towel, is testing the water.
Michael Cullen's offers a free, linear treatment of the story and, in a related vein, Diarmuid Delargy's David and Bathsheba becomes a version of the Three Graces.
Relatively few artists make any kind of conceptual leap with the material in that way that Tracy Staunton, for one, does. Her image of a chair imprinted with traces of its one-time occupant, and, in the show, accompanied by the chair itself, is a meditation on transience and absence inspired by the verse from Ecclesiastes: "All things have their season . . ." This move from scripture to the immediacy of our lives is pertinent and welcome.
James Hanley hints at such a leap. While his contribution is quite low-key - he says he aimed for simplicity as a contrast to the vast wealth of existing biblical imagery in art history - he does transpose the story of David and Goliath into a contemporary visual idiom, making an image in the form of a film still. It's just a pity he didn't go for it wholeheartedly.
John Kindness, known for his witty juxtaposition of fine and pop cultural references, effects another striking transposition, recasting the prophet Daniel's interpretation of the writing on the wall at King Belshazzar's feast to Cactusville. To, that is, Desperate Dan's hometown, in an image that is a meticulous pastiche of the comic book style.
The implication is that the narrative archetypes that underpin the Bible continue to operate in our culture. Kindness notes Joseph Campbell's warning about reading the Bible literally, as though it were a newspaper.
Holy Show is a thoroughly agreeable exhibition with an appreciable number of highlights. It is a pity, though, that overall it doesn't quite reach the level of inventiveness it should. While it is never less than adequate, there is a conventional tameness to much of the work, a predictability that somehow disappoints. Perhaps the constraints of the brief dampened the fires of inspiration. Still, we shouldn't expect miracles.
Holy Show, 39 new works made by contemporary Irish artists in response to the Hebrew Bible in the context of the Chester Beatty Collection, is at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, until September 15th