Art Footle: Sacred at the British Library

Yesterday was, bizarrely, my first visit to the British Library. I've no idea why it took me so long to pootle down to King's Cross but I'm more than happy that I did; despite the unprepossessing (or just damn ugly) exterior brickwork, the inner space is airy, light and beautiful, a perfect mix of modern clean lines and fusty bookworm sensibilities.

The Sacred exhibition, taglined "Discover what we share", is something I'd been meaning to see for a long time. A collection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred texts has been combined with a smattering of information and artefacts relating to festivals, worship and ritual. 90% of the exhibits were already in the archives; the crucial 10% that were generously loaned by benefactors made the exhibition more comprehensive but because of the small proportion of loaned items the exhibition is free, which was a pleasant surprise.

We'll get the picky criticisms out of the way first. The dimmed layout allowed for random, unstructured wandering through a clean exhibition space peppered with diaphanous material and light installations, which was great, but sometimes the arrangement was a bit questionable. An entire display case of synagogue paraphernalia - Torah scrolls, mantle, yad - clearly marked from the front side, was suddenly appended with a piece of ceramic from a mosque, with the plaque giving an overview of Islamic worship mounted round the corner. Islamic objects were a bit thin on the ground, but this was made up for by a wealth of fantastic Qu'ran illuminated manuscript work. The marriage rites section was largely Jewish focussed, with ketubot and a chuppah and a rather desperate attempt to show similarities with the tacking on of a traditional wedding dress, Jemima Khan's salwar kameez and an Islamic wedding contract.

There were also two factual errors. One stated that the whole Eastern Christian Orthodox church celebrated Christmas in January; this is actually only true of the Russian Church as far as I'm aware. It's certainly not true of Greek Orthodox worshippers. Also at Ethiopian Orthodox Eucharist spoon was exhibited with the assertion that only this branch of the church offers communion from a spoon; this is widely practiced throughout the Orthodox denomination. This wasn't the only evidence of patchy knowledge; a tour guide shepherding around a group of Muslim women had to be taken aside by my boyfriend for a whistle-stop guide to the Haggadah, and a reminder that it was not, as he had stated, part of the Bible precisely but more of a guidebook for the celebration of Pesach.

Those tiny niggles aside, this was actually an excellent exhibition, particularly accessibility wise. The illuminated manuscripts were accompanied by a rolling video demonstrating basic calligraphy and illumination techniques and there was a wealth of interactivity from touchscreen displays to iMac stations featuring the detailed and careful website accompanying the exhibition. You didn't need any amount of knowledge of the religions in question or artistic techniques to follow what was happening; I'm an ex-RE teacher and my boyfriend is a designer but had we not known the basics we would still have been able to gain a great deal. For a start, everything on display was ridiculously beautiful. The fine, detailed, extraordinary work that was on display was breathtaking. The texts were arranged by date and flowed from one religion into the next, using placement rather than words to illustrate how very much these three religions genuinely share. There was a video display with a montage showing what we share that was only faintly cloying; the message was much more subtly and successfully sent home by the constant stream of stunning artwork and calligraphy.

The exhibition is not big but it is wealthy, with a segment from the Dead Sea Scrolls and examples of plain, iconoclast texts alongside finely crafted golden frontispieces. I was particularly taken with the ornate roundels that mark the end of a Qu'ranic verse and the stunning Jewish illustrative flourishes that were made up of thousands of tiny words. Because both these religions shun iconography, the detailed illumination that speaks of the glory of God is particularly imaginative and unusual. By way of contrast are the vibrant illustrations that accompany the Christian scripture (and some of the Jewish texts such as the Haggadah); these speak of an age when religion was more prominently and unashamedly the exciting centre of people's lives, with some of the more visceral stories (the Burning Bush, for example) given both due reverence and a fitting tribute with brightly painted figures and symbols.

The exhibition is hitting the home straight, due to end on 23 September, so go while you can. There are plenty of other more permanent exhibition areas around the library to enjoy, too, including a dedicated Magna Carta room and various treasures such as the First Folio from one William Shakespeare. A rainy afternoon (or any other afternoon for that matter) couldn't be better spent.