Art as Theology: From the Postmodern to the Medieval

by Andreapoulos,Andreas

• ISBN13: 9781845531706
• ISBN10: 1845531701
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-08-08
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This study attempts to bring together a number of ideas and problems from various parts of the academic spectrum. In the first part of the hypothesis the writer expounds the view that art lost its sacred character in the late Middle Ages. Theories of religious art from the ancient Jewish drama and the Greek tragedy to the Renaissance are examined, which illustrate two different kinds of relationship between art and religion, and the way they developed from Jewish art and Greek tragedy to the Byzantine icon and the medieval Cathedral. Patristic sources are used to explore the connection between art and religion. The second part of the hypothesis is that contemporary philosophy and art, having witnessed the death of the author, are now registering the withdrawal of the work of art as an independent object, and a partial reversal of the Renaissance art paradigm (nevertheless nothing as radical as a move toward a neo-medieval paradigm). The withdrawal or death of the work of art and of art as a process, are discussed. The writer argues that contemporary art, popular and classical, is withdrawing as a distinct activity, giving its place to a growing religious awareness or practice. The fusion of the limits of art and life, that postmodernism theorized and practiced, is very consistent with the medieval view of the religious icon as a liturgical and spiritual entity.

Author Biography

Andreas Andreopoulos is Lecturer in Christian Theology at the University of Wales, Lampeter, UK

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
A Religious View of the History of the Arts	p. 7
The Religious Background of Art in the Jewish Tradition and in Greek Philosophy	p. 10
Icons: The Religious Art of the East	p. 17
"Mirrors" and Aesthetics in the Western Middle Ages	p. 50
Conclusion	p. 60
Anti-Leonardo	p. 65
Historical Definition of the Function of the Religious Work of Art	p. 65
Breaks with the Past	p. 70
Post-medieval Art and Thought	p. 92
The "Death of Art" in Postmodern Philosophy	p. 99
The Religious Artist Today: From the Postmodern to the Medieval	p. 134
Conclusion	p. 155
Notes	p. 159
Bibliography	p. 173
Index	p. 177
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