Picture Bible

Johann Buno (1617–1697). 
Bilder-Bibel, darinn die Bücher Altes und Neuen Testaments durch alle Capitel in annemliche Bilder kürtzlich gebracht.
Hamburg: A. Lichtenstein, 1680. (BRB1015)

In this picture Bible by Johann Buno, a Lutheran school teacher in Lüneburg, Germany, the text of the scriptures is absent. Instead, fifty-four engravings illustrate virtually every chapter of the Bible with miniature pictorial elements representing particular chapters. At the same time, the entirety of each engraving evokes a larger form that is symbolic of the biblical book as a whole. In the exhibited opening the forty-two chapters of the Book of Job are represented within the shapes of the afflicted believer’s upper torso and the stone pedestal upon which he leans. Although unusual in its complexity, Buno’s imagery is consistent with the Lutheran attitude toward the visual arts in that it is used not for veneration, but for biblical instruction.