Religion & Art

Religious traditions rely upon some form of material expression or mediation, even in cases in which figural images are forbidden. Religion is very much grounded in human, embodied experience, often supported by material images, objects, buildings and sites. This course will consider images and sacred narrative; sacred place and space; sacred substance; relics and pilgrimage; icons (holy images, their worship and destruction) and images of death and the afterlife across a variety of religious contexts.