The Transformation of Art from a Religious Perspective (original) (raw)
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The death of art: the transformation of art from a religious perspective
1998
The hypothesis put forth in this dissertation is twofold. The first part is based on a view (supported by writers such as Hans Belting) that maintains that art lost its sacred character in the late Middle Ages, when art was emancipated from religion and the artist was recognized as an original Creator. The two first chapters examine this issue: The first chapter (A Religious View of the History of the Arts) discusses theories of religious art from the ancient Jewish drama and the Greek tragedy to the late Middle Ages. Psychological material, mostly drawn from Lacan and Jung, is used to explore the connection between art and religion in the East and the West. The second chapter (Anti-Leonardo) focuses on some important changes in the Renaissance which can be observed mostly in art, that have affected religious and social consciousness to date.
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By taking into consideration the manifestation of the relationships between arts and religion during the 20th century, the research herein studies the general frame of artistic representations and approaches realized in the influence space of the religious field. By selecting some of the most representative artistic creations of this period, this study treats the idea of religiousness transmitted by art. Thus there are analyzed some of the main issues that the artists of the last century based their creations on, issues that marked a certain separation, already experienced by the previous periods in the field of arts and Church. Regarding artistic achievements, the 20th century meant a permanent attempt to replace past expressions, knowing the affirmation of a great variety of artistic trends and guidelines, which, in spite of the more intense process of laicization of society, nevertheless continued to assure a special space and interest to religious themes, although very different from the ones in any periods of the history of arts.
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Modernity and Postmodernity have witnessed secularization of the Western world and ultimate rationalization of thought. However, the rationalistic approach towards epistemological and ethical questions that characterizes Modernity has proven insufficient. Modern artists and philosophers directly or indirectly oppose the one-sided rationalistic view of the world and claim that the main subject and purpose of art is revelation of spiritual essences, connection with metaphysical reality. Eternal truths, Rothko claims, are the subject matter of all good art. This texts considers the modern tendency to associate art with spirituality in terms of themes, purpose and the role of the artist. I refer to contemporary philosophers and artists to elucidate the complex relationship between religion, art and spirituality today. I also explore the view that art is a kind of spiritual practice that can be compared to religious commitments. At the same time, art does not fully substitute religion. A crucial distinction is that art is inclusive, allowing agnostics and atheists to have spiritual experiences, while religion is exclusive. This however doesn't mean that art has priority in facilitating one's spiritual growth. Along with that, the paper aims at elucidating the role of art in individual and social life. In ancient times there was no boundary between art, spirituality and religion and art successfully served religion – it helped the supersensible get a sensible (visual) form. Works of art supported and fortified religious discourse and practices. Modernity is the period when traditional religion was challenged and often discarded completely. However, the interest towards spirituality, or the spiritual quest, as I call it, didn't vanish away. Spiritual matters and religious questions were 'transported' to the field of arts. This is perhaps due to the relationship that art and religion had in early history, after which, to a certain degree, art has continued to serve religious and spiritual purposes. Or it may be explained by the spiritual aspect of human nature. But the tendency to associate art with spirituality, especially in Modernity is also due to over
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In the discussion of religion and art, it is quite difficult to exactly define what makes art ‘religious’. In this article, the author suggest six different perspectives in which a work of art—any work of art—could be interpreted as ‘religious’, as an embodiment of the complex relationship between art and religion. These perspectives are not mutually exclusive: one and the same art work could be approached on multiple levels at once. Nor do they disqualify other methodologies of studying art and religion. These perspectives provide conceptual windows to understand what people (could) mean when they discuss religious art. The six perspectives are: (1) material, (2) contextual, (3) referential, (4) reflexive, (5) ritual, and (6) existential. They vary from the more or less objective to the more subjective, and as such from artist-intended to viewer/listener-perceived (with or without help of clues provided by the artist and/or the object itself). The author illustrates who these diffe...
A study of the religious recognition of art
This article aims to examine the Religious Recognition of Art through review of the related theories, and distinguishable characteristics from religious and laic perspectives. The hypotheses state that religious art encompasses sacred themes and its narrations come from rationality and wisdom in an aesthetic manner. This kind of art is replete with secrets and allegories which bestows upon it an exclusive beauty. From a pious perspective, life is holy and it holds an endless entity in which there is no dearth while death is a new cycle of life which starts another form of living. Thus, existence is the expression of holiness and divinity as religious art can be presented through religious and celestial concepts. This kind of art consists of both religious subjects and structural artistic creation which lead to religious expressions altogether. Religious art is an aesthetic experience which is created and taken from sacred and heavenly matters beyond material issues. Thus, it is based on actual spiritual and sacred awareness; while it can also include religious civilizations and mystical signs and secrets but not just any particular religion.
See note to chapter 1. This is a chapter in the book On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art (New York: Routledge, 2004), available on Amazon. Chapter 2 was originally published with two "verys": "From Bird-Goddesses to Jesus 2000: A Very, Very Brief History of Religion and Art," Thresholds [MIT] 25 (2002): 76–83, including a discussion with Caroline Jones. Later it was reprinted in Faith, exh. cat., edited by James Hyde (Hartford CT: Real Art Ways, 2005-2006), 79-90. This is about as brief as a history can get: the idea is to show that in Western practice before the Renaissance, the concepts of "religion" and "art" did not exist in their current forms, so it does not make sense to talk about "religious art" in all centuries and cultures. The chapter also points to developments from the 16th to the 19th centuries, in which "art" became increasingly detached from "religion." Without these very abstract, very sweeping observations, it can sometimes be difficult to know what is being claimed in conversations on religion and art.
Psychological Templates of Religion and Their Reflection in Art, Architecture or the Decorative Arts
Religious art acts as the conduit for human need. The projection of psychological needs as posited by Freud has led to a cynical view of religious art as only related to religious expression, but we propose to view art as a projection of ultimate concern. The means by which human need for nurture and family, amongst other aspects, is expressed and objectified and becomes an external mean, through which love and it mirroring are expressed and processed.
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Visual art owes its modernity from the crisis it fell into in the midst of the nineteenth century. Courbet’s call for realism questioned the foundation of the art of his time. The incapacity of the series of ‘-isms’ that followed to answer Courbet’s call, pointed to a crisis not only in art, but in the then emerging non-artistic visual culture in general. In fact, Courbet’s call questioned the image paradigm that was in force since the Renaissance: the one of ‘representation’. The crisis of art laid bare the crisis of the representation paradigm. Modern art’s complex relation to religion and spirituality must be understood in the context of this paradigm crisis. Although generally anti-religious, modern art often keeps on being fascinated by religion, spirituality, and mysticism. The ‘religious’, the ‘holy’, the ‘sanctity’ modern art is inclined to, is linked to the crisis it originates from. Does this reference to the religious and the spiritual, then, constitute the answer to that...
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The psychology of art has had an enormous development since the middle of the last century; however, no much work has been done in association with religious and sacred art. This paper aims to provide a brief history of the use of images in the three great monotheistic religions, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.All three religions have been influenced by the commandment (Exodus, 20:4), which prohibits idolatry. Nevertheless, when it comes to the use of images with religious content, the commandment is interpreted differently by the three. If in Judaism and Islam the use of images is not particularly widespread and is bound to precise conditions, in Christianity a strong relationship with the visual arts has developed, at least until the Reformation. After this split, the use of images was only encouraged by the Catholic Church even though, with the Enlightenment, religious and sacred art suffered a decline even in Catholic culture.It was not until the twentieth and twenty-fir...