Sacred Art Research Articles

The Sorrowful Fates of Rebirth: Ippolito Desideri Encounters Tibetan Sacred Art

A lesser, but for that reason not to be neglected, aspect of the thought of Ippolito Desideri is his perception and interpretation of Tibetan artistic phenomenology (including architecture),1 a lucid perception within the limits of his own formation, but certainly a passionate one, as in the case of all the other fields to which he applied himself. In the Report of Father Ippolito significant and admirable descriptions of Tibetan art are not lacking as also are some of the most noteworthy sites: Leh, Sakya, Saka Dzong, Shigatse, naturally Lhasa and its monuments (Ramoche, Potala), as well as the area around the great monastery of Sera. Father Ippolito Desideri referred to himself as "the lama Ippolito, whose head is white as a star" (Tibetan: mGo.sKar.Gyi.bLa.Ma.I.Po.li.do; in Notizie Istoriche del Thibet, e Memorie de' viaggi, e missione ivi fatta dal P. Ippolito Desideri della Compagnia di Giesù Dal medesimo scritte, e dedicate 1712–1733), more likely alluding to the clarity of his own vision than to the color of his hair. His vision not only penetrated—at least intellectually if not experientially—the ultimate modality of the existence of reality (śūnyatā), that is, the concept that stands as the foundation of the immense theoretical-speculative edifice of Buddhism, as well as the totality of the dimensions proper to Tibetan civilization, not the least of which is art. The acuteness of his gaze will take him not only to bestowing on Europe one of the first credible accounts of Tibetan art, but also to criticize—and with good reason—several descriptions of the sacred content of Himalayan art offered by authors preceding him (notably Athanasius Kircher and António de Andrade).

Stepping inside the image: a case study in Sacred Space and art

ABSTRACTThis case study seeks to establish a new context within which Sacred Space may be discerned: the encounters that take place around a work of art. Drawing on doctoral research into spiritual well-being in which groups of young people explored a variety of artworks, this article builds on writing within the fields of theological aesthetics and pastoral care which discern features of Sacred Space. Five features are identified that justify the designation ‘Sacred Space’, peculiar to the conversations which may take place around a work of art: a sense of awe; ‘ownership’ whereby an image becomes personal; a sense of presence in the art usually reserved for a sentient being; awareness of the transcendent presence of many voices; and a heightened sense of spatiality whereby participants experience being drawn within the image.

Acute Colic Pseudo-obstruction as a Manifestation of Lead Intoxication in a Sacred Art Conservator: A Case Report

Lead intoxication can present with nonspecific symptoms and signs. It is a difficult diagnoses to make, where the clinical history (specially the epidemiological inquiry) assumes particular relevance. We report a case of a 39-years-old male patient, with no prior medical history. He came to the Emergency Department with a 3-week history of abdominal pain. He also had 7-day constipation and recent onset jaundice. He worked as a conservator of sacred art. On physical examination, he presented darkening of the gums, jaundice and abdominal distension and diffuse abdominal pain. Analytically, he had normocytic normochromic anemia. The liver chemistry tests showed indirect hyperbilirubinemia (1,83 mg/dL), with mild increased transaminases and normal alkaline phosphatase. The abdominal radiography revealed gaseous distention of the colon. The abdominal computed tomography showed exuberant distention of the whole colon, especially marked at the level of the cecum (6,7cm of longitudinal diameter) and right colon. A pseudo-obstruction of the colon was assumed, with no defined etiological diagnosis. He was hospitalized for conservative treatment and diagnostic investigation. The study of anemia was compatible with non-immune hemolysis. The peripheral blood smear had abundant stomatocytes and polychromatic cells with basophilic dotting. The etiological study of liver disease (including viral serologies, autoimmunity, iron kinetics, ceruloplasmin and urinary copper) was negative. We performed a liver biopsy that showed the presence of mixed hepatocellular steatosis, mild hepatocellular siderosis and accumulation of ferric pigment in Kupffer cells. Given the clinical presentation, the typical findings in the blood smear and the epidemiological context, a serum lead assay was performed compatible with toxic levels - 920 mcg / L. Lead chelation was started with calcium disodium edetate 20 mg/kg/day for 5 days, without intercurrences. The patient was discharged after the chelation therapy with patient's clinical response monitoring in the outpatient department. This clinical case illustrates the need for gastroenterologists to recognize digestive manifestations of systemic diseases, including intoxications. Such diseases can present in their acute form with signs/symptoms that reach the digestive system.Figure: Abdominal computed tomography - exuberant distention of the whole colon, especially marked at the level of the cecum and right colon.Figure: Peripheral blood smear - Abundant stomatocytes (open arrow) and polychromatic cells with basophilic dotting (arrow).Figure: Liver Bipsy - Accumulation of ferric pigment in Kupffer cells (arrows) (Perals, 400x).

Our Distributed Selves: An Interview with Professor J. Lorand Matory

AbstractOn May 16 and 17, 2017, the Transforming Anthropology staff had the pleasure of visiting the “Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic” collection, which features the living art and ritual objects of Dr. J. Lorand Matory, the Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, and also to celebrate the eleventh year of his seminal book, Black Atlantic Religion (Princeton University Press, 2005). During the tour and discussion with Professor Matory, Transforming Anthropology's team was able to explore this extensive showcasing of African and African‐inspired religious artifacts, as well as to delve more deeply into his philosophy of “distributed self.” This two‐day tour and discussion ended with an hour‐long interview with Professor Matory about both his collection and his scholarship on African inspired religions. As part of TA's special forum on race and religion, we highlight an extended excerpt of the interview, conducted by two of the journal's editorial interns, Khytie Brown (KB) and Adrian Hernandez‐Acosta (AHA). The interview centers on how Professor Matory models his philosophy of “live dialogue,” and the role of objects in mediating relationships among people, spirits, and their gods. To listen to the interview, check out the Transforming Anthropology podcast (https://soundcloud.com/transformanthro).

Heritage Preservation and Sacred Art After the Second Vatican Council

The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium specifically contains provisions concerning liturgy but also the preservation of historical monuments and issues of sacred art. There is an urgent question in connection with the development of modern art as to which type of art is suitable for the sacred, liturgical space and which is not. This begs the question as to how to define sacred art. Another problem is raised, however, in connection with the preservation of historic buildings (esp. churches), that being how to reconcile the requirements of church and those of state heritage preservation? Specific questions are presented by disused churches, their sale and subsequent use. There is also the issue of the formation of candidates for the priesthood and priests concerned with preservation of historical monuments and sacred art. The issue will be discussed on the basis of church documents (general and particular) and selected relevant examples.The paper will be focused on the Sacrosanctum Concilium 44-46, 122-129 in connection not only with preservation of historic church buildings, but with the issue of sacred art (modern art in the Church, sacred furnishings, the commission for sacred art) and that of unneeded “redundant” churches: the use of church buildings for other/secular purposes.

Symbols of Sacred Art in the Corporate Identity of Insurance Companies

This article examines the development of the insurance business in Ukraine and Poland from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. It identifies special aspects of the formation and use of elements of sacred art in the corporate identity of insurance companies. Dniester Mutual Insurance Company and Florianka Krakow Mutual Insurance Company are a particular focus. Examples of the use of images of St. Florian, crosses and the inscription “In the name of the Lord” in corporate identity of insurance companies are provided.

Sztuka sakralna a przeżycie tanatologiczne - aspekt teologiczno-pedagogiczny

Wychowanie przez sztukę mające prowadzić do rozwoju człowieka, do równowagi funkcji intelektualnych, emocjonalnych i motywacyjno-wolitywnych, jest często pomijanym aspektem. Sztuka powinna opanować nasze życie. Świat wyobraźni formowany jest od dzieciństwa, poddawany różnym perturbacjom, różnicuje się w trakcie dorastania i doświadczeń. Są to również doświadczenia przykre, smutne, trudne. Sztuka sakralna nie pomija takich doznań w życiu człowieka. Przedstawia śmierć często w taki sposób, by odbiorcę zachęcić do refleksji i wzbogacić jego życie. Sztuka wtedy staje się narzędziem ogólnego kształtowania człowieka, które ma umożliwić mu życie w sposób spontaniczny i twórczy, a także pomóc osiągnąć harmonię życia zmysłowego, uczuciowego i intelektualnego.

The Church and the Sacred Arts: One Shared Mission

The Church and the Sacred Arts: One Shared Mission

The Sacred Art: Medicine in the Carolingian Renaissance

This article argues that beginning around the turn of the ninth century Carolingian intellectuals engaged in a sustained effort to confirm medicine’s status as a sacred art. It examines the theological justifications for medicine’s utility contained in the Lorscher Arzneibuch. It likewise analyzes how scribes manipulated visual illustrations, metaphors, biblical citations, and histories of medicine in other ninthcentury medical manuscripts in an effort to absorb classical medical knowledge within a Christian tradition. The convergent aims of different compilers suggest that the Lorsch apology should not be seen as a anomaly but as part of a broader agenda to establish medicine’s orthodoxy within a reformed Christian society. That this took inspiration from the close links between conceptions of physical and spiritual health is illustrated by the language used to describe the medicus and the powers accorded to his work. The article challenges the characterization of early medieval medicine as Monchsmedizin...

A economia de imagens – Arte sacra católica depois do Vaticano II

The urge to debug the sacred space of all excessive ornament and meaningless elements, as well as the radicalization of modern ideals connected to essentialism, sincerity and functionalism lead us to a question: Could the 1960s be seen as a time of a withering sacred art, with the exception of architecture? The paper deals with the source for those conceptions and the role played by the Vatican II (1962-1965) in the process.

People as New Art Commissioners? Examples of Devotion of Sacred Art in the Salento Region at the Beginning of the Third Millennium

The Salento area in Italy is currently experiencing a kind of globalization affecting sacred art images. “Timeless” imitative images, based upon 19th century models, originating from high prototypes, have been replaced in home furnishings by pop icons of the Saints, the Crucified Christ and the Virgin Mary deprived of any artistic research. Paintings and images must be immediately recognizable everywhere: simplified and visually strong, as in contemporary advertisements, and serially reproducible. The popular taste, regardless of any real artistic consideration, directs the choices of parish priests and mayors, asking for images without symbolic contents. The people seem to be the real new art commissioners: it may even occur that forms of devotion not officially recognised by the Church, such as the devotion regarding the so-called “Lady of Medjugorje”, get a place inside a local church, next to the recognized holy icons. The Lady of Medjugorje representation follows an elementary and disarming pattern w...

The Sacredness of Art and God in the Perspective of Worship

The sacredness, though always has a destination other than the common, does not always have a divine destination. There are objects and places, parts of literature and music that have become sacred due to their historical value, due to the author or because of the message they bear, but which are not intended to God. In this context we can talk about some monuments to the glory of heroes, or patriotic musical-artistic compositions etc., artistic events that are set aside, commemorated and that claim an attitude of sacredness from those bound emotionally and metaphysically to the moments evoked. Complementarily, as artistic value and religious law, are those parts of the sacred art which are intended to a “reality”, that people consider as transcending the perishable reality, and which lie somewhere outside time. This sacred art is intended either to the gods or to God. In this new orientation regarding the recipient of art, its sacredness becomes an object of controversy and authenticity, but never on the reality of its sacredness, but always on the addressee. Always are searched arguments for or against the existence of the alleged deity. At this level, sacredness implies a different bond between the spiritual dimension of the human being and the sacredness of the art in question. When talking about sacredness, in general, and about the sacredness of art, in particular, the problem of morality intervenes from a biblical perspective. This is because whenever we have to do with the artistic sacredness, we have to do with an election through which we switch from worshiping God to something else entirely. Since the sacredness is the reality put aside for someone or dedicated to someone, the following questions arise: How sacred can become an artistic detail (music, painting, sculpture, literature, etc.) not to become an idol and how sacred can become the human attitude towards an artistic reality not to become idolatry? Also, we must ask ourselves to what extent can get involved the artist in the sacred art he creates, not to get in conflict with some passages in the Bible, that forbid the image, and how little can an artist get involved in creating sacred art to accomplish the image some passages of the Bible require? In the present research we will try to put the scientific-dogmatic basis on the issue of the above. Without claiming to solve the problem, we will emphasize, however, some nuances trying to take both into account the artistic vocation and the artistic intention, both the vocation of the artist and the artist's intention.

Animal Imagery in the Apocalypse

The Renaissance was a fertile era for the rise of religious art mainly based on Biblical narratives from the Old and New testaments. Daunting imagery from the Book of Revelation (The Apocalypse) did not inspire the creation of many paintings. It was Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and William Blake (1757-1827) who produced several Biblical truths largely concentrating on the apocalyptic vision. This profound book contains a rich corpus of animal symbols, which provide challenging archetypes for contemporary painters in Nigeria and elsewhere. These have been presented in this paper chronologically in a lexicon; possible interpretations and analysis of the dense motifs are offered as guide to contemporary Nigerian painters and those interested in pursuing the merits of sacred art. Secondary sources of data have essentially informed the prognosis in this paper. The author acknowledges that this is an ongoing study and it is likely to be deepened when newer insights are gotten from further research. Key w ords : God, Christ, Renaissance, Sacred Art, Apocalypse, Angels, Woman, Dragon, Sulphur, Beast

Recasting the Image: Celso Costantini and the Role of Sacred Art and Architecture in the Indigenization of the Chinese Catholic Church, 1922–1933

How can Christianity not be viewed as a foreign religion in China? It is not a new question: Celso Costantini (1876–1958), apostolic delegate to China, wrestled with the same question during the tumultuous 1920s. As a Roman Catholic, Costantini didn’t approach indigenization through the well-known Protestant “three-self” formula. Rather, he encouraged local artists to paint Christian themes using Chinese motifs. He promoted the use of Chinese architectural styles, rather than Western edifices, in Catholic buildings. Through the indigenization of sacred art and architecture, Costantini sought to recast the image of the Christian church in China.

Living at the Crossroads: Three Exhibitions Vodou, a Way of Life, exhibition catalogue for Le Vodou, un art de vivre by Jacques Hainard and Philippe Mathez, and: Caribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World, exhibition catalogue for Caribbean; Crossroads of the World by El Museo del Barrio, Harlem Studio Museum, and Queens Museum, and: Kafou, exhibition catalogue for Kafou

Living at the Crossroads: Three Exhibitions Vodou, a Way of Life, exhibition catalogue for Le Vodou, un art de vivre, Hainard, Jacques and Philippe Mathez. Geneva, Switzerland: Musee d'Ethnographie de Genevre, 2007. ISBN 978-2-88474-232-0. 175 pp. $41 - $116.00 paperback.Caribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World, exhibition catalogue for Caribbean; Crossroads of the World, El Museo del Barrio, Harlem Studio Museum, Queens Museum. New York: El Museo del Barrio and Yale University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-300-17854-8. 491 pp. $65.00 paperback.Kafou, exhibition catalogue for Kafou, Nottingham Contemporary. Nottingham, England: Nottingham Contemporary Art Center, 2012. ISBN 978-1-907421-05-1. 247 pp. £25.00.Since the Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou exhibitions and comprehensive catalogue of 1998-1999, neither Haitian art nor the wider category of Caribbean art has had such a simultaneous international presence in the art space as they had in 2011 and 2012. Three substantial presentations in Europe and the United State attracted large numbers of viewers. Vodou, Un Art de Vivre in Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany and Canada; Caribbean: Crossroads of the World in New York; and Kafou at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England each produced catalogue guides of permanent cultural merit.Vodou, un art de vivre featured Madame Marianne Lehmann's collection of Bizango and Vodou art: La Fondation pour la Preservation, la Valorisation et la Production d'OEuvres Culturelles Haitiens (FPVOCH). The exhibition was at the Musee d'Ethnographie de Geneve from December 2007 to August 2008; Amsterdam's Tropenmuseum 2008-2009; the Berlin Ethnologischishes Museum 209-2010; the Bremen Ubersee Museum in 2011; finally in Musee Canadien des Civilisations in Gatineau, Quebec, from November 2012 to February of 2013.The catalogue includes texts by Jacques Hainard, Philippe Mathez, Arnaud Robert, Oliver Schinz, and Gamila Walter; interviews with Marianne Lehmann and Max Beauvoir; an essay on the Vodou-Makaya tradition by Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique, and instructive excerpts from the writings of Beauvoir-Dominique, Elizabeth McAlister, and Patrick Polk. It highlights the importance of crossroads, presenting them as the transcendent geography of life and death. Several of the clay sculptures are of theriomorphic creatures existing as species at the crossroads of human and animal, incorporating an imaginaire of the genetic power of both.The Lehmann collection notably includes art generated in secret societies such as Bizango. Secret societies and Vodou should be distinguished from one another; but many Haitians participate in both. They share many beliefs and practices, and have a common source in Haiti's slavery and liberation history. Paralleling bellicose Vodou Petwo rites, forged in anguished resistance to colonial slave economy, arts produced in the secret milieu tend to be aggressive, even brutal, proclaiming a spirit of vigorous combat for self- and community preservation. Swaths of black, red and shades of grey dominate this collection and the catalogue, relieved by light scintillating out of darkness from mirrors and glittering ritual banners. The banners are gorgeous reminders of the fighting military heritage, as Patrick Polk has shown in Haitian Vodou Flags.Superbly photographed by Johnathan Watts, the more than 100 catalogue illustrations evoke a sense that the statues, assemblages, ceramic, wooden or metal objects and flags are an army of occupation. Safely on the page, their palpability nevertheless emanates power from their dark but optimistic presence. Overall the anthropomorphic and theriomorphic constructions especially are unsettling chimera. Danger is a resident force in the objects, fully capable of being unleashed if called upon. Not readily visible in the illustrations are table and chair legs fashioned from femurs and tibias. These appear also in Atis Rezistans works included in the Kafou exhibition. …

Rockets, Astronauts, and Shrines: Representations of Spaceflight in Sacred Visual Art and Architecture

This article examines the relationship between space exploration and sacred visual art, demonstrating that religious iconography and church architecture evolved by assimilating humankind's entry into the physical heavens as a living parable. This is proven by the presence of space exploration imagery within places of worship—from a church building inspired by a payload fairing to inclusion of space exploration milestones as historical landmarks, from astronauts being chosen as depictions of Christian virtues to lunar material being included in church windows, and from a space shuttle being painted on a Christian Orthodox church wall to a space hotel being represented on a Buddhist temple. The incidences of space themes in religious visual arts, as well as the fervor of reception, vary nonetheless among denominations.

Osogbo and the Art of Heritage: monuments, deities, and money by Peter Probst

Reviewed by: Osogbo and the Art of Heritage: monuments, deities, and money by Peter Probst Ferdinand De Jong Peter Probst , Osogbo and the Art of Heritage: monuments, deities, and money. Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: Indiana University Press (hb £50.35 - 978 0 25335 611 6; pb £16.14 - 978 0 25322 295 4). 2011, xi+207 pp. including black and white, and colour Illustrations. This book is not about the 'saving' of African art by European art aficionados, although that story is required background reading. In 1958 the German [End Page 527] Ulli Beier and his Austrian wife Suzanne Wenger set up an art school in Osogbo, Nigeria. Inspired by the art brut movement led by Dubuffet, they launched various projects to teach Africans to make 'raw' art. Whilst the marriage between Beier and Wenger did not last, the projects they initiated produced a lasting legacy. Famous Osogbo artists like Twins Seven Seven and Jacob Afolabi first experimented with art under their guidance. Beier eventually moved to Papua New Guinea, but Wenger 'went native', immersed herself ever deeper in Yoruba religion, and became an Olorisa, a worshipper of Yoruba deities. It was in that capacity - and as an artist - that she started repairing and rebuilding dilapidated shrines. In collaboration with Nigerian artists like Adebisi Akanji, she reshaped the ritual landscape of the Osun grove of Osogbo by placing cement sculptures of deities and shrines in the grove. Probst paints a vivid account of the remaking of the Osogbo sacred grove with the 'new images' of Wenger's Sacred Art group. Situating her initiative in a colonial context, he reminds us that it was based on the widely shared opinion that African art was dead, or dying. The modernist 'experiments' in Osogbo were part of a modern movement to 'revitalize' African creativity and to counter the destructive impact of colonial modernity. Critical of the colonial nostalgia that drove the experiments in Osogbo, this book is really about something else; it is about the Osun grove as heritage. In 1965, due to the effective action by one of Osogbo's sons who was a minister in the Nigerian federal government, the Osun grove was credited with the status of national monument. Although still ignored during FESTAC '77 - for being too much indebted to colonial intervention - the grove's hybridity was increasingly valued in the international contest for local cultural achievements. In its 'second career' as heritage, the grove was eventually awarded UNESCO World Heritage status in 2005. Today, the Osun grove and its annual Festival attract many national and international visitors - although perhaps not as many as the applicants for the UNESCO qualification had hoped. But the 'success' of this process was never secure. In fact, Wenger's 'new images' have always attracted fierce criticism and their authenticity was debated at various moments. How the participants in the annual Osun Osogbo Festival experience the 'new images' and to what extent they deem these images effective in communicating with the deity Osun is discussed in several chapters. This excellent anthropological analysis is matched with a good historical analysis of how the traditional rulers have reshaped the significance of the sacred grove. In a context in which the majority of Osogbo's population converted to Islam or Christianity, they strategically represented Osun grove as a memory of the Osogbo past, rather than a symbol of Yoruba religion. Needless to say, these processes of representation - including photography and images circulating on the Internet - were, and still are, highly contested. Probst places the current struggle for authentication of the grove against the background of Osogbo mythology on the foundation of the city and its grove. In this cosmology, the traditional ruler and the sacred grove are said to mediate between the people and the deity Osun. Drawing upon contemporary media theory, the last chapter analyses the grove as medium and explicitly situates the modernist 'experiment' in this longue durée. Thus we learn Probst's take on Suzanne Wenger's innovations in the sacred grove: 'What from the outside looked like a modernist "experiment" in public art was and still is part of a long and well-established local strategy to remain in control of media...

Reading Catholic Art in Edmund Spenser’s Temple of Isis

This article investigates Spenser’s Egyptian lexicon for the Catholic veneration of sacred images in the Temple of Isis in book 5 of the Faerie Queene . Though not Catholic, Spenser salvages the spiritual power of material objects for his own literary project. By deploying Egyptian mythology as the setting for Britomart’s dream vision of English Empire, Spenser sketches a translatio imperii from Egypt to Rome and from Rome to England, a transfer not only of political but also of religious power; for England to vie for the inheritance of the Roman Empire, it had to show a lineage to Rome, just as Britomart’s dream vision shows Queen Elizabeth’s ancestry. I argue that in her dream vision, Britomart can be seen not only as Isis but also as the Virgin Mary. Spenser’s emphasis on the spiritual power of the Isis statue to transform Britomart leads me to a contemporary title-page image in John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica . The textual and visual correlations between the Isis statue and Dee’s monad testify to a shared reverence for the power of material objects in early modern England’s Protestant culture. The Faerie Queene educates readers, like Britomart, to recognize the difference between sacred art and empty idolatry—to resist seduction by Busirane’s statue of Cupid and to acknowledge the power of Isis.

Indian Classical Dance: A Sacred Art?

Is Indian classical dance a sacred art? A great many people tend to assume that the temple origin of the dance ensures that a sense of the sacred and a link with religion continues to shape its practice. In this brief paper, however, the author rejects this position, arguing that Indian classical dance has not been a sacred art for well over a century, due to the process of modernisation it underwent throughout the 20th century. The nostalgia attached to the notion of classical dance as a Hindu ‘sacred’ art is one example of a more widespread appropriation of Indian arts by contemporary socio-political agendas. Indian classical dance can however be a vehicle for modern spirituality, understood to be detached from any specific religious affiliation, and no longer dependent on tradition, but predicated on a modern subjectivity and on the performer's and audience's agency and interaction.

In Memoriam: Pierrot Barra, 1942-1999

t has been a grim season for Haitian art. The influential dealer and patron Carlos Jara died suddenly of a heart attack last May, followed, on July 19, by Rodney Flambert, assistant director of Le Centre d'Art, bon vivant, and indefatigable champion of all the arts, who had suffered a st oke last spring. And on July 31, visionary artist Pierrot Barra died of heart failure. In collaboration with his wife, Barra had developed a unique style of sculptural art which achieved international acclaim after b ing featured in the exhibition Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou and several other shows