Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? John Updike calls modern art "a religion assembled from the fragments of our daily life," but does that mean that contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief?

On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art explores the curious disconnection between spirituality and current art. This book will enable you to walk into a museum and talk about the spirituality that is or is not visible in the art you see.

From God's creation of the world to the Gospel teachings of the New Testament, this volume provides a wealth of splendid illustrations that bring to life familiar scenes and stories from the Bible. Painstakingly reproduced from a rare volume of German engravings, 179 illustrations offer detailed and imaginative renderings of 105 episodes from the Old Testament, including the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, Moses in the bulrushes, the slaying of Goliath, and many more.
Seventy-four scenes from the New Testament include the Annunciation and the birth of Christ, the wedding at...

Morgan's history of popular religious images ranges from the late Middle Ages to the present day and analyzes what he calls "visual piety," or the belief that images convey. Rather than isolating popular icons from their social...

"[Peers takes] the angelic experience as an instance of the problems inherent in Christian representation. But both astutely and elegantly, he treats...

This book examines visual representations of the public ministry of Christ in scenes unique to the Gospel of Luke. Scenes depicting the birth, suffering, and crucifixion of Christ no doubt dominated the visual repertoire of medieval and renaissance artists. Nonetheless, the miracles and teachings of Jesus also inspired numerous depictions, not only during the period of the earliest Christian art but continuing throughout the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods. The book demonstrates how this "visual exegesis" might enrich our understanding of Luke's Gospel and at the same time inform...

The Byzantines surrounded themselves with their saints, invisible but constant companions, who were made visible by dreams, visions, and art. The composition and presentation of this imagined gallery followed a logical structure, a construct that was itself a collective work of art created by Byzantine society. The purpose of this book is to analyze the logic of the saint's image in Byzantium, both in portraits and in narrative scenes. Here Henry Maguire argues that the Byzantines gave to their images differing formal characteristics of movement, modeling, depth, and differentiation,...

St. Joseph is mentioned only eight times in the New Testament Gospels. Prior to the late medieval period, Church doctrine rarely noticed him except in passing. But in 1555 this humble carpenter, earthly spouse of the Virgin Mary and foster father of Jesus, was made patron of the Conquest and conversion in Mexico. In 1672, King Charles II of Spain named St. Joseph patron of his kingdom, toppling St. James--traditional protector of the Iberian peninsula for over 800 years--from his honored position. Focusing on the changing manifestations of Holy Family and St. Joseph imagery in Spain and...

The first section of the book discusses Christian...