Faith In The Frame

Faith In The Frame is a new 10 part series for ITV1, and sees Melvyn Bragg chair lively 30 minute discussions on the religious themes and relevance of ten of the world’s most fascinating religious pictures.

Each week, the panel will be drawn from writers, art historians, and religious experts, as well as some of the most important religious figures in the UK. They will discuss the subject matter, artistic value and social history of each of the paintings, as well as why the paintings are still relevant today. The discussions are entertaining and wide-ranging – with works being described as “the most harrowing depiction of suffering in Western art,” and “a joyful and sensuous vision of Heaven on Earth”.

The weekly panellists debate the meaning and message of this diverse group of paintings with a passion, never shying away from controversy: would it have been braver for Chris Ofili to have portrayed Muhammad as one of the monkeys in his installation “The Upper Room”, rather than just Jesus and the 12 Apostles?; or why Chagall’s depiction of Jesus in his painting The White Crucifixion is still a shocking sight for Jewish eyes.

In programme one the panel discuss The Resurrection, Cookham by Stanley Spencer: This is a highly individual vision of Heaven on earth, painted between 1924-27, and set in Stanley’s local Cookham churchyard where he had played when young, the perfect English idyll.

Panellists: Howard Jacobson – novelist; Tim Marlow - writer and broadcaster; and Richard Harries - former bishop of Oxford.

Last edited: Friday, 15 August 2008