Welter and Waste in the Hebrew Bible

The work of history’s greatest artists—from Michelangelo to Rembrandt—is filled with depictions of the Exodus, of Mordechai and Esther, of creation itself. But what did these Old Masters make of the Hebrew Bible; how did it influence them? Did these artworks honor or depart from Jewish interpretive tradition? Did the art inspired by the Hebrew Bible fundamentally differ from that inspired by the New Testament and other foundational Christian texts? Why did Tanakh yield so many masterpieces?