The Israelites Passing through the Wilderness - William West
The Israelites Passing through the Wilderness - William West
Author: William West
Source: Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (Art UK)
Link: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-israelites-passing-through-the-wilderness-preceded-by-the-pillar-of-light-189250
Advent placement: 2025-12-20 (paired with [[20-widow-jane-paradigm-rye]])
Theme: God guiding Israel by a pillar of fire - the last of the Bristol School’s Romantic biblical landscapes.
Verbatim source text
Reproduced from calendar/2025-12-20.qmd (Whisk(e)y Advent 2025).
The Israelites Passing through the Wilderness, Preceded by the Pillar of Light, by William West
From the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
“The departure of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt is told in the Old Testament book of Exodus. God guided them at night with the light from a pillar of fire. West painted a dramatic night scene, with the light streaming down on tiny figures of Moses and the Israelites. By 1845, such an epic treatment of a biblical subject was old-fashioned and it is the last of the Bristol School’s imaginary, Romantic landscapes. It would be twentieth-century film-makers who were to reinvent the epic dramatisation of history with casts of thousands.”