A vibrant critical exchange between contemporary art and Christianity is being increasingly prompted by an expanding programme of art installations and commissions for ecclesiastical spaces. Rather than 'religious art' reflecting Christian ideology, current practices frequently initiate projects that question the values and traditions of the host space, or present objects and events that challenge its visual conventions. In the light of these developments, this book asks what conditions are favourable to enhancing and expanding the possibilities of church-based art, and how can these conditions be addressed? What viable language or strategies can be formulated to understand and analyse art's role within the church? Focusing on concepts drawn from anthropology, comparative religion, art theory, theology and philosophy, this book formulates a lexicon of terms built around the notion of encounter in order to review the effective uses and experience of contemporary art in churches. The author concludes with the prognosis that art for the church has reached a critical and decisive phase in its history, testing the assumption that contemporary art should be a taken-for-granted element of modern church life. Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace uniquely combines conceptual analysis, critical case studies and practical application in a rigorous and inventive manner, dealing specifically with contemporary art of the past twenty-five years, and the most recent developments in the church's policies for the arts.

This innovative book aims to create a 'poetics of Church' and a 'religious imaginary' as alternatives to more institutional and conventional ways of thinking and of being 'Church'. Structured as a spiritual and literary journey, the work moves from models of the institutional Catholic Church into more radical and ambiguous textual spaces, which the author creates by bringing together an unorthodox group of thinkers referred to as 'poet-companions': the 16th-century founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola, the French thinkers Gaston Bachelard and Helene Cixous, the French poet Yves Bonnefoy, and the English playwright Dennis Potter. Inspired especially by the reading and writing practices of Cixous, the author attempts to exemplify Cixous' notion of ecriture feminine-'feminine writing'-that suggests new ways of seeing and relating. The project's uniting of Ignatian spirituality with postmodern thinking and its concern with creating new theological, literary and spiritual spaces for women both coincide and contrast with Pope Francis's pastoral and reformist tendencies, which have neglected to adequately address the marginalisation of women in the Church. As Francis has called for 'a theology of women', of which there are, of course, many to draw from, this volume will be a timely contribution with a unique interdisciplinary approach.

Sarnath has long been regarded as the place where the Buddha preached his first sermon and established the Buddhist monastic order. Excavations at Sarnath have yielded the foundations of temples and monastic dwellings, two Buddhist reliquary mounds (stupas), and some of the most important sculptures in the history of Indian art. This volume offers the first critical examination of the historic site. Frederick M. Asher provides a longue duree (long-term) analysis of Sarnath-including the plunder, excavation, and display of antiquities and the Archaeological Survey of India's presentation-and considers what lies beyond the fenced-in excavated area. His analytical history of Sarnath's architectural and sculptural remains contains a significant study of the site's sculptures, their uneven production, and their global distribution. Asher also examines modern Sarnath, which is a living establishment replete with new temples and monasteries that constitute a Buddhist presence on the outskirts of Varanasi, the most sacred Hindu city.

In "Believing and Seeing", Roland Recht argues that preoccupation with vision as a key to religious knowledge profoundly affected a broad range of late medieval works. In addition to the great cathedrals of France, Recht explores key religious buildings throughout Europe to reveal how their grand designs supported this profusion of images that made visible the signs of scripture. Reimagining these works as a link between devotional practices in the late Middle Ages and contemporaneous theories that deemed vision the basis of empirical truth, Recht provides students and scholars with a new lens through which to view Gothic art and architecture.

This book highlights the history of Islamic popular devotional art and visual culture in 20th-century India, weaving the personal narrative of the author's journey through his understanding of the faith. It begins with an introductory exploration of how the basic and universal image of Mecca and Medina may have been imported into Indian popular print culture and what variants it resulted in here. Besides providing a historical context of the pre-print culture of popular Muslim visuality, the book also explores the impact the 1947 Partition of India may have made on the calendar art in South Asia. A significant portion of the book focuses on the contemporary prints of different localised images found in India and what role these play in the users' lives, especially in the augmentation of their popular faith and cultural practices. The volume also compares the images published in India with some of those available in Pakistan to reflect different socio-political trajectories. Finally, it discusses why such a vibrant visual culture continues to thrive among South Asian Muslims despite the questions raised by the orthodoxy on its legitimacy in Islam, and why images and popular visual cultures are inevitable for popular piety despite the orthodox Muslims' increasing dissociation from them. This work is one of the first books on Indian Muslim poster art, with rare images and simple narratives, anecdotes about rituals, ceremonies and cultural traditions running parallel to research findings. This second edition contains a new Afterword that discusses challenges to religious plurality arising on account of changing political landscapes, economic liberalisation, technology and new media, and socio-religious developments. It will appeal to the lay reader as well as the specialist and will be especially useful to researchers and scholars in popular culture, media and cultural studies, visual art and performance studies, and sociology and social anthropology.

Art As Witness is an invitation for professors, researchers, clergy, educators, students, and activists to creatively integrate the arts in theology and religious studies for a practical theology of arts-based research that prioritizes public witness. This methodology challenges the traditional written word as being the privileged norm, arguing that this emerging research genre is an excellent, viable, and necessary option for research that supports, promotes, and publicizes liberating theology for the marginalized, victimized, and oppressed. It includes a detailed case study of "Art Inside Karnes," the all-volunteer arts-based ministry of presence the author facilitated inside a for-profit immigrant family detention center that became the Power of Hope traveling art exhibit for education, advocacy, and public witness. This primer covers practical ethical, legal, and political matters; includes pedagogical examples for how to use arts-based research for student assessment in theology and religious studies; and provides an overview of arts options, including literary genres, visual arts, fabric arts, theater, filmmaking, and new media with digital content. Art as Witness features 40 illustrations, several case studies, and multiple contributing theologian-artists who engage the arts in themes that include immigration, HIV/AIDS, biblical studies, political protest, gender equity, gun law reform, racial justice, and more.

This is the first monograph on the subject to be published in English. It comprises 130 full-colour plates of shaman gods. Supported by two introductory chapters 'Reflections on Shaman God Paintings and Shamanism' by Kim Tae-gon, and 'The Shaman God Paintings as an Icon and Its Artistic Qualities' by Bak Yong-suk, both distinguished authorities in the study of Korean Shamanism, The Paintings of Korean Shaman Gods offers a very accessible introduction to understanding Korean shamanism and its art. The Paintings of Korean Shaman Gods broad appeal will be welcomed by both specialists and generalists in the fields of Asian Studies, Art History and Cultural and Religious Studies.

Less than a year after the end of authoritarian rule in 1998, huge images of Jesus Christ and other Christian scenes proliferated on walls and billboards around a provincial town in eastern Indonesia where conflict had arisen between Muslims and Christians. A manifestation of the extreme perception that emerged amid uncertainty and the challenge to seeing brought on by urban warfare, the street paintings erected by Protestant motorbike-taxi drivers signaled a radical departure from the aniconic tradition of the old colonial church, a desire to be seen and recognized by political authorities from Jakarta to the UN and European Union, an aim to reinstate the Christian look of a city in the face of the country's widespread islamicization, and an opening to a more intimate relationship to the divine through the bringing-into-vision of the Christian god. Stridently assertive, these affectively charged mediations of religion, masculinity, Christian privilege and subjectivity are among the myriad ephemera of war, from rumors, graffiti, incendiary pamphlets, and Video CDs, to Peace Provocateur text-messages and children's reconciliation drawings. Orphaned Landscapes theorizes the production of monumental street art and other visual media as part of a wider work on appearance in which ordinary people, wittingly or unwittingly, refigure the aesthetic forms and sensory environment of their urban surroundings. The book offers a rich, nuanced account of a place in crisis, while also showing how the work on appearance, far from epiphenomenal, is inherent to sociopolitical change. Whether considering the emergence and disappearance of street art or the atmospherics and fog of war, Spyer demonstrates the importance of an attunement to elusive, ephemeral phenomena for their palpable and varying effects in the world. Orphaned Landscapes: Violence, Visuality, and Appearance in Indonesia is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

The Cambridge Family Chronicle Bible has been designed and produced as a Bible to enjoy for generations. It combines the best typographic design with the highest standards of printing and bookbinding. The majestic text of the King James Bible is presented in a typesetting inspired by the legendary Baskerville Bible, and the words of Scripture are brought to life with 221 engravings by 19th century illustrator Gustave Dore - painstakingly reproduced for this edition from the original printings. Drawing on the glories of the past, but looking to the future too, the Bible incorporates a unique 14-page family chronicle, allowing owners to record up to six generations of family history and tell their family story for years to come. The Bible is printed on paper selected for its strength and durability and two of Dore's impressive illustrations are enlarged on the endpapers to highlight their intricate detail. This cloth-bound Bible has a contemporary look, with dramatic foil blocking showing 'fire and water' detail from one of Dore's woodcuts. The volume is protected by an attractive blue and orange slipcase.

For 2,000 years the pope has been the acknowledged head of the Roman Catholic Church. As the direct successor of St Peter, he holds a unique position, ruling over millions of Catholics worldwide. This comprehensive guide to the 266 men who have been pope provides a timeline of the history of the papacy, and details each pope's life, influence and the way they have shaped the church. Divided into three historical sections in chronological order - the First Popes; the Crusades and the Reformation; and Into the Modern Era - this lavishly illustrated reference book will fascinate and inform anyone interested in the history of Catholicism.

"How do we approach the study of masculinity in the past?" Ruth Mazo Karras asks. Medieval documents that have come down to us tell a great deal about the things that men did, but not enough about what they did specifically as men, or what these practices meant to them in terms of masculinity. Yet no less than in our own time, masculinity was a complicated construct in the Middle Ages. In Thou Art the Man, Karras focuses on one figure, King David, who was important in both Christian and Jewish medieval cultures, to show how he epitomized many and sometimes contradictory aspects of masculine identity. For late medieval Christians, he was one of the Nine Worthies, held up as a model of valor and virtue; for medieval Jews, he was the paradigmatic king, not just a remnant of the past, but part of a living heritage. In both traditions he was warrior, lover, and friend, founder of a dynasty and a sacred poet. But how could an exemplar of virtue also be a murderer and adulterer? How could a physical weakling be a great warrior? How could someone whose claim to the throne was not dynastic be a key symbol of the importance of dynasty? And how could someone who dances with slaves be noble? Exploring the different configurations of David in biblical and Talmudic commentaries, in Latin, Hebrew, and vernacular literatures across Europe, in liturgy, and in the visual arts, Thou Art the Man offers a rich case study of how ideas and ideals of masculinity could bend to support a variety of purposes within and across medieval cultures.

When Europeans came to the American continent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were confronted with what they perceived as sacrificial practices. Representations of Tupinamba cannibals, Aztecs slicing human hearts out, and idolatrous Incas flooded the early modern European imagination. But there was no less horror within European borders; during the early modern period no region was left untouched by the disasters of war. Sacrifice and Conversion in the Early Modern Atlantic World illuminates a particular aspect of the mutual influences between the European invasions of the American continent and the crisis of Christianity during the Reform and its aftermaths: the conceptualization and representation of sacrifice. Because of its centrality in religious practices and systems, sacrifice becomes a crucial way to understand not only cultural exchange, but also the power struggles between American and European societies in colonial times. How do cultures interpret sacrificial practices other than their own? What is the role of these interpretations in conversion? From the central perspective of sacrifice, these essays examine the encounter between European and American sacrificial conceptions-expressed in texts, music, rituals, and images-and their intellectual, cultural, religious, ideological, and artistic derivations.

A richly illustrated examination of food in the Bible, concentrating on the social aspects of eating. Why do we think it was an apple that Eve offered to Adam? In fact the Bible tells us nothing of the kind, yet apples figure in the illustrations. Out of literally hundreds of meals mentioned in the Bible, only relatively fewwere ever illustrated. This book discusses the most frequently illustrated scenes, covering the thirteen centuries from Roman catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs to Rembrandt and Poussin. Many of the subjects discussed willbe widely familiar, others, such as the meals of Ruth and of the Parables, perhaps less so. Close attention is paid to the biblical text and its coverage in the illustrations. In rare instances the images have no source in the text. The popular scene of Joseph cooking for the infant Jesus, for example, is never mentioned. It is known only from biblical commentaries and from the extant illustrations. The book contains some 160 colour images illustrating the twenty-two meals discussed. It will provide food for thought for readers interested in the study of the Bible and biblical commentaries, the history of meals and food, and the history of art. C.M. KAUFFMANN was Keeper of Prints & Drawings and Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum and then Director of the Courtauld Institute and Professor of the History of Art, University of London. Among his publications are catalogues of paintingsat the V & A and the Wellington Museum and also books and articles on medieval art, including Romanesque Manuscripts (1066-1190) and Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1550.

Despite the large number of monumental Last Supper frescoes which adorn refectories in Quattrocento Florence, until now no monograph has appeared in English on the Florentine Last Supper frescoes, nor has any study examined the perceptions of the original viewers. This study examines the rarely considered effect of gender on the profoundly contextualized perceptions of the male and female religious who viewed the Florentine Last Supper images in surprisingly different physical and cultural refectory environments. In addition to offering detailed visual analyses, the author draws on a broad spectrum of published and unpublished primary materials, including monastic rules, devotional tracts and reading materials, the constitutions and ordinazioni for individual houses, inventories from male and female communities and the Convent Suppression documents of the Archivio di Stato in Florence. By examining the original viewers' attitudes to images, their educational status, acculturated pieties, affective responses, levels of community, degrees of reclusion, and even the types of food eaten in the refectories, Hiller argues that the perceptions of these viewers of the Last Supper frescoes were intrinsically gendered.

Andalusian Hours: Poems from the Porch of Flannery O'Connor is a collection of 101 sonnets that channel the voice of celebrated fiction writer, Flannery O'Connor. In these poems, poet and scholar Angela Alaimo O'Donnell imagines the rich interior life Flannery lived during the last fourteen years of her life in rural Georgia on her family's farm named "Andalusia." Each poem begins with an epigraph taken from O'Connor's essays, stories, or letters; the poet then plumbs Flannery's thoughts and the poignant circumstances behind them, welcoming the reader into O'Connor's private world. Together the poems tell the story of a brilliant young woman who enjoyed a bright and promising childhood, was struck with lupus just as her writing career hit its stride, and was forced to return home and live out her days in exile, far from the literary world she loved. By turns tragic and comic, the poems in Andalusian Hours explore Flannery's loves and losses, her complex relationship with her mother, her battle with her illness and disability, and her passion for her writing. The poems mark time in keeping with the liturgical hours O'Connor herself honored in her prayer life and in her quasi-monastic devotion to her vocation and to the home she learned to love, Andalusia.

This important book presents the results of a comprehensive technical study of the painters in Cologne between 1400 and 1450. It represents a major step forward in understanding the materials and techniques of panel painting in the 15th century achieved through dendrochronological evidence and examination of the ground and intermediate layers, pigments etc. In addition to discussions on the results of the analyses, there is a catalogue of 29 fifteenth century panels together with the results of their examinations. Contents: Introduction Art-historical Introduction Wooden Picture Supports Grounds and Intermediate Layers Compositional Lay-in Metal-leaf Applications and Ornamental Techniques Painting Materials, Paint Application and Painting Techniques The Works: Their Forms and Functions Let the Material Talk: Summary from the Point of View of Art Technology Speaking Pictures - Silent Painters: An Art-historical Summary Catalogue Appendix

Between the third and sixth centuries, the ancient gods, goddesses, and heroes who had populated the imagination of humankind for a millennium were replaced by a new imagery of Christ and his saints. Thomas Mathews explores the many different, often surprising, artistic images and religious interpretations of Christ during this period. He challenges the accepted theory of the "Emperor Mystique," which, interpreting Christ as king, derives the vocabulary of Christian art from the propagandistic imagery of the Roman emperor. This revised edition contains a new preface by the author and a new chapter on the origin and development of icons in private domestic cult.

An examination of the passion and crucifixion of Christ as depicted in the visual and religious culture of Anglo-Norman England. The twelfth century has long been recognised as a period of unusual vibrancy and importance, witnessing seminal changes in the inter-related spheres of theology, devotional practice, and iconography, especially with regard to thecross and the crucifixion of Christ. However, the visual arts of the period have been somewhat neglected, scholarly activity tending to concentrate on its textual and intellectual heritage. This book explores this extraordinarily rich and vibrant visual and religious culture, offering new and exciting insights into its significance, and studying the dynamic relationships between ideas and images in England between 1066 and the first decades of the thirteenth century. In addition to providing the first extensive survey of surviving Passion imagery from the period, it explores those images' contexts: intellectual, cultural, religious, and art-historical. It thus not only enhances our understanding of the place of the cross in Anglo-Norman culture; it also demonstrates how new image theories and patterns of agency shaped the life of the later medieval church. John Munns is a Fellow of MagdaleneCollege, Cambridge.

In this beautifully illustrated book, eminent art historian John Rosenfield explores the life and art of the Japanese Buddhist monk Hozan Tankai (1629-1716). Through a close examination of sculptures, paintings, ritual implements, and primary documents, the book demonstrates how the Shingon prelate's artistic activities were central to his important place in the world of late-seventeenth-century Japanese Buddhism. At the same time, the book shows the richness of early modern Japanese Buddhist art, which has often been neglected and undervalued.

Tankai was firmly committed to the spiritual disciplines of mountain Buddhism--seclusion, severe asceticism, meditation, and ritual. But in the 1680s, after being appointed head of a small, run-down temple on the slopes of Mount Ikoma, near Nara, he revealed that he was also a gifted artist and administrator. He embarked on an ambitious campaign of constructing temple halls and commissioning icons, and the Ikoma temple, soon renamed H?zanji, became a vibrant center of popular Buddhism, as it remains today. He was a remarkably productive artist, and by the end of his life more than 150 works were associated with him.

A major reconsideration of a key artistic and religious figure, "Preserving the Dharma" brings much-needed attention to an overlooked period of Japanese Buddhist art.

The articles republished in this volume are ground-breaking studies that employ a large body of religious figural imagery of Byzantine lead seals ranging from the 6th to the 15th century. A number of the studies present tables, charts and graphs in their analysis of iconographic trends and changing popularity of saintly figures over time. And since many of the seals bear inscriptions that include the names, titles or offices of their owners, information often not given for the patrons of sacred images in other media, these diminutive objects permit an investigation into the social use of sacred imagery through the various sectors of Byzantine culture: the civil, ecclesiastical and military administrations. The religious figural imagery of the lead seals, accompanied by their owners' identifying inscriptions, offers a means of investigating both the broader visual piety of the Byzantine world and the intimate realm of their owners' personal devotions. Other studies in this volume are devoted to rare or previously unknown sacred images that demonstrate the value of the iconography of Byzantine lead seals for Byzantine studies in general. This volume includes studies dedicated to the image of Christ, primarily found on imperial seals, various images of the Virgin, and narrative or Christological scenes. A companion volume presents various articles focusing on sphragistic images of saints and on the religious imagery of Byzantine seals as a means of investigating the personal piety of seal owners, as well as the wider realm of the visual piety and religious devotions of Byzantine culture at all levels. (CS1085)

For millennia, art has been religious - even in times and places when there was no word for 'art'. Then, in the Renaissance, it became possible for art to glorify the artist, making viewers think more of his skills than of the subjects he portrayed. The modern artist faces a more complex dilemma - one that no art historian has talked about until now. Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? Is contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief? The Impossibility of Transcendence is about the curious disconnect 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.

This probing analysis of three works by Giotto and the patrons who commissioned them goes far beyond the cliches of Giotto as the founding figure of Western painting. It traces the interactions between Franciscan friars and powerful bankers, illuminating the complex interplay between mercantile wealth and the iconography of poverty.

Political strife and religious faction lacerated fourteenth-century Italy. Giotto s commissions are best understood against the background of this social turmoil. They reflected the demands of his patrons, the requirements of the Franciscan Order, and the restlessly inventive genius of the painter. Julian Gardner examines this important period of Giotto s path-breaking career through works originally created for Franciscan churches: "Stigmatization of Saint Francis" from San Francesco at Pisa, now in the Louvre, the Bardi Chapel cycle of the "Life of St. Francis" in Santa Croce at Florence, and the frescoes of the crossing vault above the tomb of Saint Francis in the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi.

These murals were executed during a twenty-year period when internal tensions divided the friars themselves and when the Order was confronted by a radical change of papal policy toward its defining vow of poverty. The Order had amassed great wealth and built ostentatious churches, alienating many Franciscans in the process and incurring the hostility of other Orders. Many elements in Giotto s frescoes, including references to St. Peter, Florentine politics, and church architecture, were included to satisfy patrons, redefine the figure of Francis, and celebrate the dominant group within the Franciscan brotherhood.