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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Behold the Man: Christ Crowned With Thorns by Dirk Bouts

Christ Crowned With Thorns by Dirk Bouts

Behold the Man

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Behold the Man, Christ Crowned With Thorns by Dirk BoutsClose menu

At the National Gallery, Sikh writer Sathnam Sanghera encounters the suffering Christ.

At the National Gallery, writer Sathnam Sanghera  - son of devout Sikh parents – comes face to face with a 15th-century image of the suffering Christ.

Born to devout Sikh parents, the writer Sathnam Sanghera (best known for his memoir, The Boy With The Topknot, which became an acclaimed BBC Two drama) had a profound sense of anticlimax when he stood in front of his chosen painting at the National Gallery, Christ Crowned With Thorns by the 15th century Netherlandish painter Dirk Bouts. Yet on closer scrutiny, the image started to move him – and for his Essay, it opened up surprising insights into his own Sikh heritage and how much the Christian and Sikh artistic traditions have in common. 

For this Holy Week series, BBC Radio 3 has invited five people to choose a painting of Christ’s passion or resurrection at the National Gallery in London and make it the starting point for their Essay.

Image: Workshop of Dirk Bouts, ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’, about 1470-5 © The National Gallery, London

The series producer is Kristine Pommert for CTVC.

The Essay: Behold the Man

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Essays for Holy Week inspired by paintings at the National Gallery in London.

BBC Radio 3 has invited five people to choose a painting of Christ's Passion or Resurrection at the National Gallery in London and make it the starting point for their essay.

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