'Fruits of the Spirit: Art from the Heart', is a pioneering virtual exhibition from the Art and Religion research strand at the National Gallery. Highlighting paintings as diverse as Jan van Eyck’s 'Arnolfini Portrait' and Claude Monet’s 'Water-Lilies' from the collection at Trafalgar Square alongside German Expressionist and contemporary art from a wide range of UK collections, 'Fruits of the Spirit' encourages dialogues through art which span different historical and geographical periods and cultural perspectives.
2019 - 2023
Curated by Ayla Lepine and Susanna Avery-Quash, assisted by Siobhán Jolley, National Gallery
Digital Project Team – John Shevlin and Lucinda Blaser, National Gallery
Exhibition and Graphic Design – Belén Cao Ruiz, National Gallery and Simon Klinkenberg, Moyosa Media
The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham
Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury
The McManus, Dundee
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester
Ben Uri Gallery & Museum, London
The Foundling Museum, London
The Box, Plymouth
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton
With
New Art Studio
Kent Refugee Action Network
Barber Health
Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust
The Village Hub
Howard and Roberta Ahmanson
Digital activity at the National Gallery is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies Digital Accelerator
researchcentre@nationalgallery.org.uk
Devised by the National Gallery and museums throughout the UK, Fruits of the Spirit: Art From the Heart pairs nine pictures from the National Gallery’s collection with nine from partner institutions.
The paired paintings open up discussions around Saint Paul’s nine positive attributes in his 2000-year-old letter to the Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The letter discusses how to build and maintain community in the face of disagreement. Although the list comes from a religious source, the nine attributes are positive and helpful for individuals and communities within both religious and secular contexts.
In March 2021, near the anniversary of the first lockdown in England, the idea for Fruits of the Spirit emerged in order to connect such fundamentally important human themes as love, joy, and generosity with paintings in the National Gallery’s collection in partnership with nine regional venues across the UK. As a primarily digital experience, the virtual exhibition, audio guide and online catalogue are free for all to explore and enjoy. The experience is designed to encourage viewers to slow down, contemplate and reconnect with the wonder of art.
This project centred collaboration with partner institutions and their communities. In addition to the National Gallery centred outputs (the online exhibition and catalogue, the in-Gallery Smartify tour and trail, and a series of In Focus Talks) a number of events took place around the country.
Practical and creative sessions included:
The project also featured in a number of public talks and lectures including:
Many community groups benefited from tours and introductions from the curatorial team, and the project has resourced schools and parish groups in their own creative endeavours.
A virtual exhibition inspired by Saint Paul’s description of themes including love, joy, and peace in the Christian Bible.
This virtual gallery experience is best viewed in a Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers, including the mobile safari and chromium browsers for iOS and Android.
The AR functionality works on mobile devices only:
for iOS 12 or later on Safari and Chrome
for Android: Android 7.0 or later
As part of their creative response to the project, members of the Latent Talent group (working with museum partner The McManus and community partner Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust) produced self portrait videos. This film represents the generosity of sharing of oneself and the portraiture on display in The Arnolfini Portrait and Two Auld Wifies.
Revd Dr Ayla Lepine, curator of the virtual exhibition 'Fruits of the Spirit: Art from the Heart' and former Ahmanson Research Associate Curator in Art and Religion at the National Gallery, explores the theme of peace through Monet's 'Water-Lilies'
