Kategoria BISAC: Art >> Subjects & Themes - Religious

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.

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,...

The concept of opposing forces of good and evil expressed in a broad range of moral qualities--virtues and vices--is one of the most dominant themes in the history of Christian art. The complex interrelationship of these moral traits received considerable study in the medieval period, resulting in a vast and elaborate system of imagery that has been largely neglected by modern scholarship. Rich resources for the study of this important subject are made available by this volume, which publishes the complete holdings of the more than 230 personifications of Virtues and Vices in the Index of...

David--the greatest king of Israel, the founder of Jerusalem, and one of the pivotal figures of the Old Testament--was a rich source of inspiration for artists and their patrons throughout the medieval world. Regarded as a direct ancestor of Jesus, the "sweet psalmist of Israel" appears in countless works of art, from the Dura Europus paintings to the many illuminated psalters of the later medieval period. These depictions of David are as varied as they are numerous. He appears, among other roles, as musician, author, warrior, lover, shepherd, politician, worshipper, father, king, refugee,...

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...

Established in 1917, the Index of Christian Art, located at Princeton University, is now the largest archive of medieval art in existence and the most specialized resource for the iconographer. Throughout its eighty-five years, it has justly been recognized as one of the most learned institutions for the study of the art and culture of the medieval world. The essays in this book, all by staff or scholars of the archive, highlight some of the current research in the archive and the scholarship for which it has been widely renowned.

The studies cover art from the Late Antique...

The first section of the book discusses Christian...