Articles

Writers On Billl Viola / Michelangelo

Bill Viola, Nantes Triptych

RA Exhibitions

4 years ago

Bill Viola / Michelangelo: scenes from the extremities of life

We asked four writers to respond to key themes in ‘Bill Viola / Michelangelo’. On the subject of birth, art historian Ingrid Rowland reveals how both artists confront the particular and the universal in the cycle of life.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Risen Christ (detail)

RA Exhibitions

4 years ago

Bill Viola / Michelangelo: finding the language of emotion

We asked four writers to respond to key themes in ‘Bill Viola / Michelangelo’. On the subject of emotional states, novelist Deborah Levy asks what it means to surrender to our most intense and incoherent feelings.
Bill Viola, Man Searching for Immortality/Woman Searching for Eternity

RA Exhibitions

4 years ago

Bill Viola / Michelangelo: art as a search for meaning

We asked four writers to respond to key themes in ‘Bill Viola / Michelangelo’. On the subject of mortality, the former bishop Richard Holloway writes that art and religion are driven onwards by the fact of our death.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Archers Shooting at a Herm (detail)

RA Exhibitions

4 years ago

Bill Viola / Michelangelo: expressing the inexpressible

We asked four writers to respond to key themes in ‘Bill Viola / Michelangelo’. On the subject of transcendence, poet and novelist Ben Okri argues that art’s power lies where understanding leaves off, beyond thought and word.