Welcome

This is a temporary introduction page for 'The Great Gift' which is a book of William Arkle's paintings concerning the spiritual journey, and the nature of our relationship with God, and God's with us. It was first published in 1977

It is best viewed at full screen, without the toolbars on your browser. (On PCs, F11.)

Bill is considering rewriting some of the commentaries to reflect the development in his thinking. Any help you can give with this would be much appreciated.

Some of the original canvasses are very large, but the images need to be fairly small to load quickly, and, at this size, some of the detail is not visible. Eventually, all will be clickable to take you to a larger image. Some are now - experiment and find which! They open in a separate window. Just close it when you have finished.

It does have to be said that none of these images do the originals justice. A photograph, compared to a five foot painting, just doesn't have the same impact, and it is difficult to reproduce the very subtle, ethereal colours. However, we hope you enjoy these lovely pictures, and would welcome any comments, suggestions or questions that you may have.

The pictures are followed by a sequence of essays that are part of the original book. These may also be viewed separately from the opening page.

The navigation buttons will always be found under the text. You can choose to follow the images in the order in which they were published by using the left and right arrows, or go straight to the thumbnail page by using the up arrow.

Michael