This book demonstrates that numerous prominent artists in every period of the modern era were expressing spiritual interests when they created celebrated works of art. This magisterial overview insightfully reveals the centrality of an often denied and misunderstood element in the cultural history of modern art.

This book demonstrates that numerous prominent artists in every period of the modern era were expressing spiritual interests when they created celebrated works of art. This magisterial overview insightfully reveals the centrality of an often denied and misunderstood element in the cultural history of modern art.

Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two hundred years of scientific discoveries that inspired French Impressionist painters and Art Nouveau architects, as well as Surrealists in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. Lynn Gamwell describes how the microscope and telescope expanded the artist's vision into realms unseen by the naked eye. In the nineteenth century, a strange and exciting world came into focus, one of microorganisms in a drop of water and spiral nebulas in the night sky. The world is also filled with forces that are truly unobservable, known only indirectly by their effects—radio waves, X-rays, and sound-waves. Gamwell shows how artists developed the pivotal style of modernism—abstract, non-objective art—to symbolize these unseen worlds. Starting in Germany with Romanticism and ending with international contemporary art, she traces the development of the visual arts as an expression of the scientific worldview in which humankind is part of a natural web of dynamic forces without predetermined purpose or meaning. Gamwell reveals how artists give nature meaning by portraying it as mysterious, dangerous, or beautiful. With a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a wealth of stunning images, this expanded edition of Exploring the Invisible draws on the latest scholarship to provide a global perspective on the scientists and artists who explore life on Earth, human consciousness, and the space-time universe.

In this expanded edition of a classic work of spiritual theology, historian Richard Lovelace presents a history of spiritual renewals in light of biblical models. With scholarly and pastoral insight, he offers a powerful vision of renewal that can unify various models across traditions, combining individual and corporate spirituality, social activism, and evangelism.

"The spiritual in contemporary art is everywhere evident, yet rarely examined in scholarly research. Encountering the Spiritual in Contemporary Art addresses the subject in depth for the first time since Maurice Tuchman's seminal 1986 The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985. It significantly broadens the scope of previous scholarship to include new media and non-Western and Indigenous art in addition to that of the West. Encountering the Spiritual presents art from diverse cultures with equal status, promotes its cultural specificity, and moves beyond previous notions of "center and periphery," celebrating the plurality and global nature of contemporary art today. This unprecedented book--a valuable reference for years to come--integrates different ways of exploring the spiritual in art. Essays based on cultural affinities are rhythmically interspersed with thematic categories. These themes demonstrate greater diversity and hybridity of artists' sources of inspiration and their emphasis on art-making as spiritual process. Finally, selected artists' statements further expand the knowledge of an academic and general audience"--

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.

This is an invitation to a spiritual awakening. The author demonstrates the relevance of spiritual issues to pragmatic concerns - of modern life, weaving the diverse insights of spiritual traditions into a tapestry of creativity and renewal. By the author of Lost Goddesses of Early Greece.

Blaspheming artists get all the press. Some exploit the shock potential of religious imagery - but many also reflect deeply on spiritual matters and are, in fact, some of the most profound and sensitive commentators on religion today. Here, Aaron Rosen shows how religious themes and images permeate the work of contemporary artists from across the globe. Contrary to the expectations of twentieth-century rationalists, religion has not faded away in the 21st century, but roared back onto the scene with renewed vitality. This survey shows how religious themes and images continue to permeate the work of contemporary artists from across the globe. Some exploit the shock potential of religious imagery, but many also reflect deeply on spiritual matters. The introduction outlines the debates and controversies that the art-religion connection has precipitated throughout history. Each of the book's chapters opens by introducing a theme - ideas about creation, the sublime, wonder, diaspora and exile, religious and political conflict, ritual practice, mourning and monumentalizing, environmental art and sacred space - followed by a selection of works of art that develop that theme. The book encompasses a wide range of media and genres, from sculpture to street art, and considers faith in its broadest sense - from Islam and Christianity to Aboriginal mythology and meditation. Artists discussed include Ai Weiwei, Francis Alÿs, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Cristo and Jeanne-Claude, Olafur Eliasson, Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum, David LaChapelle, Richard Long, Annette Messager, Mariko Mori, Grayson Perry, Richard Serra, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bill Viola, Mark Wallinger and more.