Bible Overpaintings from the Sammlung Frieder Burda

Arnulf Rainer -the best-known and most important Austrian artist of the past fifty years- forged a completely new path in European art with his "overpaintings": paintings and drawings done "over" already existing works. Between 1995 and 1998 Rainer produced a remarkable series of Bible illustrations, in which he engaged with originals ranging from 10th-Century illuminated manuscripts to 19th century works. These included pieces by such artists as Giotto and Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Bellini, and William Blake, as well as Romanesque ceiling decorations, Gothic stained-glass windows, miniatures from the illuminated Wenceslas Bible, woodcuts from 15th century incunabula, and the 1868 Bible illustrated by Gustave Dora. In his responses to these works Rainer displays the full spectrum of his palette of "overpainting" techniques - from the most delicate of over-drawings to dense paintwork that virtually obliterates the original. In this volume all 160 of Arnulf Rainer's cycle of Bible illustrations are reproduced in large-format plates, accompanied by texts from the authorized version of the Bible from the year 1611 - as well as informative art-historical data and detailed commentaries on the artist's reworkings.