How has religion affected the creation and patronage of American art? This is the question explored in 'The Visual Arts and Christianity in America', the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date. With its 184 illustrations, the volume is a visual and textual survey of both the religious paintings, statuary, and architecture produced in America since colonial times and the attitudes toward such art expressed by the artists, the clergy, and the religious press. By means of a multifaceted approach that includes investigation of biographical, journalistic, art historical, as well as religious literature, a broad range of art objects and buildings are carefully placed in their social and intellectual context. Part One presents the colonial backdrop, both English and Spanish, against which and out of which the ensuing developments in American art and religious life took shape. Part Two treats nineteenth-century views of art and architecture, focusing on the views held by the clergy and conveyed in religious journals as well as the religious views of the artists and architects themselves. In Part Three, devoted to art in private and public life, major issues emerge that will remain as such into the twentieth century: the relation between nature and history, the place of art in civil religion, and the presence or absence of explicit biblical themes. The fourth and entirely new portion of the book, devoted to the twentieth century, examines the continuities and discontinuities in style and content between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art in relation to spiritual and religious perceptions.

What does art have to do with faith? For many Christians, paintings, films, music, and other forms of art are simply used for wall decoration, entertaining distraction, or worshipful devotion. But what if the arts played a more prominent role in the Christian life? In Discovering God through the Arts, discover how the arts can be tools for faith-building, life-changing spiritual formation for all Christians. Terry Glaspey, author of 75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know, examines: How the arts assist us in prayer and contemplation How the arts help us rediscover a sense of wonder How the arts help us deal with emotions How the arts aid theological reflection and so much more. Let your faith be enriched, and discover how beauty and creativity can draw you nearer to the ultimate Creator.

A collection of essays exploring prominent African American artists' engagement with Christian themes. Essays examine the ways in which an artist's engagement with religious symbols can be an expression of concerns related to racial, political, and socio-economic identity.

Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity and actively participated in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, Cecile Fromont examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture and traces its development across four centuries marked by war, the Atlantic slave trade, and, finally, the rise of nineteenth-century European colonialism. By offering an extensive analysis of the religious, political, and artistic innovations through which the Kongo embraced Christianity, Fromont approaches the country's conversion as a dynamic process that unfolded across centuries. The African kingdom's elite independently and gradually intertwined old and new, local and foreign religious thought, political concepts, and visual forms to mold a novel and constantly evolving Kongo Christian worldview. Fromont sheds light on the cross-cultural exchanges between Africa, Europe, and Latin America that shaped the early modern world, and she outlines the religious, artistic, and social background of the countless men and women displaced by the slave trade from central Africa to all corners of the Atlantic world.

How has religion affected the creation and patronage of American art? This is the question explored in 'The Visual Arts and Christianity in America', the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date. With its 184 illustrations, the volume is a visual and textual survey of both the religious paintings, statuary, and architecture produced in America since colonial times and the attitudes toward such art expressed by the artists, the clergy, and the religious press. By means of a multifaceted approach that includes investigation of biographical, journalistic, art historical, as well as religious literature, a broad range of art objects and buildings are carefully placed in their social and intellectual context. Part One presents the colonial backdrop, both English and Spanish, against which and out of which the ensuing developments in American art and religious life took shape. Part Two treats nineteenth-century views of art and architecture, focusing on the views held by the clergy and conveyed in religious journals as well as the religious views of the artists and architects themselves. In Part Three, devoted to art in private and public life, major issues emerge that will remain as such into the twentieth century: the relation between nature and history, the place of art in civil religion, and the presence or absence of explicit biblical themes. The fourth and entirely new portion of the book, devoted to the twentieth century, examines the continuities and discontinuities in style and content between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art in relation to spiritual and religious perceptions.

An intriguing, substantive look into the relationship between the church and the world of art.

Understanding Early Christian Art is designed for students of both religion and of art history. It makes the critical tools of art historians accessible to students of religion, to help them understand better the visual representations of Christianity. It will also aid art historians in comprehending the complex theology, history and context of Christian art. This interdisciplinary and boundary-breaking approach will enable students in several fields to further their understanding and knowledge of the art of the early Christian era. Understanding Early Christian Art contains over fifty images with parallel text.

Religion, Art, and Visual Culture is a cross-cultural exploration of the study of visuality and the arts from a religious perspective. This forward looking and accessible collection gathers together the most current scholarship for those interested in art, religion, visual culture, and cultural studies. Inherently interdisciplinary, this reader approaches the study of world religions through the human, meaning-making activity of seeing. The volume oscillates between specific visual subjects (painting, landscape gardens, calligraphy, architecture, mass media) and the broader theoretical discourses which are relevant to Humanities students today.

Explores the works of five major American Jewish artists: Jack Levine, George Segal, Audrey Flack, Larry Rivers, and R. B. Kitaj. Focuses on the use of imagery influenced by the Bible.