Stories from the Bible, the Apocrypha (books which were not accepted by the authorities) and other later legends are very common in art. In the medieval and Renaissance periods most art was produced for churches and paintings and sculptures were the way in which these stories were told and made real for a largely illiterate population. The lives of the saints were further examples of noble and moral behaviour to be followed or aspired to.
Both religious and mythological stories feature heroes and villains, supernatural forces interacting with earthly life, and expressions of complex human emotions: from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Judgement of Solomon, the suffering of Job, to the story of Christ’s life.
