Interpreting The Bible and its Visual Expression Within the Cultural Landscape of Wales 1825-1975

Project start date: 2005-09 Project end date: 2008-08
The Imaging the Bible in Wales Research Project seeks to record a wide range of artwork from Wales during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that depicts biblical scenes and characters. The Bible has played a vital role in the religious and cultural life of Wales, and the project seeks to interpret the social, political and theological issues that the artworks raise. This work has been enabled through fieldwork and new photography, the results of which are now available to a wide and inclusive audience: biblical specialists, heritage groups, artists and art historians, as well as church and community groups.
Era(s): 
Country/region(s): 
Methods usedCategory
2d illustrationPractice-led research
2d scanningPractice-led research
2d Scanning and photographyData capture
Accessibility analysisStrategy and project management
Resource sharingCommunication and collaboration
Cataloguing and indexingData structuring and enhancement
Disk publishingData publishing and dissemination
Desktop publishing and pre-pressData publishing and dissemination
Moving image captureData capture
PhotographyPractice-led research
Sound recordingData capture
StoryboardingPractice-led research
DocumentationStrategy and project management
Image enhancementData structuring and enhancement
Image manipulationPractice-led research
Iterative designStrategy and project management
PhotomontagePractice-led research
PrototypingStrategy and project management
Searching and queryingData analysis
Server scriptingData publishing and dissemination
Sound editingData structuring and enhancement
System quality assurance and code testingStrategy and project management
Security planningStrategy and project management
Usability analysisStrategy and project management
Video editingData structuring and enhancement
soundContent types
moving imageContent types
Community Arts (including Art and Health)Discipline
historyDiscipline
Funding sources: 
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created: 
Dataset/structured data, Moving Image, Sound, Still Image/Graphics
Software tools used: 
MySQL, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Macromedia Director, Adobe InDesign
Source material used:  
Processed digital photographs, copies of which will be held by the University of Wales, Lampeter and the National Library of Wales on hard drives and as DVD-ROM copies. Further audio-visual material consists of audio minidiscs, also archived on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM as well as hard drive back ups, and miniDV tapes, held at the Media Centre, University of Wales Lampeter, with copies at the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, National Library of Wales.
Digital resource created:  
Two digital resources have been produced. First an interactive DVD-ROM and second an online database of images. The DVD-ROM is available for purchase as part of the illustrated volume Biblical Art from Wales (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010), or is available on its own through the Theology Department at the University of Wales, Lampeter. It contains around 600 images, interpreted according to themes relevant to the overall project and are contextualized through interviews with specialists drawn from the disciplines of theology and art history as well as practising artists. An online database of some 6,000 images has been created and provides additional contextual information such as artist biographies and topographical details.
Access to digital resource:  
Open Access
Data Formats created: 
Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF), Digital Video File (DV), MySQL, Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
Camera RAW photographs processed as uncompressed TIFF files, and also compressed JPEG files for the online database and DVD-ROM.
Metadata standards employed: 
Visual Resources Association Core 3.0 (VRA)
Publications:  
Martin O’Kane and John Morgan-Guy (eds.), Biblical Art from Wales (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010).

Martin Crampin and John Morgan-Guy, Imaging the Bible in Wales (DVD-ROM) (University of Wales, Lampeter 2010).

The third publication is the Imaging the Bible in Wales Database, hosted by the National Library of Wales and available at http://imagingthebible.llgc.org.uk.


Project staff and expertise: 

Principal staff member:Dr Martin O Kane; Professor Geraint Jenkins; Mr Andrew Green
Other staff:Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s)
External expertise:


Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record
Author(s) of recordMartin Crampin
TitleInterpreting The Bible and its Visual Expression Within the Cultural Landscape of Wales 1825-1975
Record created2008-03-11
Record updated2010-06-28 11:22
URL of recordhttp://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2293
Citation of recordMartin Crampin: Interpreting The Bible and its Visual Expression Within the Cultural Landscape of Wales 1825-1975.
<http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2293>
created: 2008-03-11, last updated 2010-06-28 11:22