Religious art is artistic imagery using religious inspiration and motifs and is often intended to uplift the mind to the spiritual. Sacred or religious art involves the ritual and cultic practices and practical and operative aspects of the path of the spiritual realisation within an artist’s religious tradition. This type of art is important because religious paintings idealise, suggest, glorify, and tell the story of a religion. They keep religious traditions alive and make it easier for individuals to visualise a concept or event that is otherwise difficult to imagine using mere words.
As visible religion, art communicates religious beliefs and values through iconography* and depictions of the human body. The foundational principle for the interconnections between art and religion is the reciprocity between image making and meaning making as creative correspondence of humanity with divinity.
(*Iconography is a branch of art history, studies the identification, description, and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style)
An example of religious, historic art is Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles would betray him. Its thorough use of space, understanding of perspective, treatment of motion and complex display of human emotion, has made it one of the Western world's most recognisable paintings and among Leonardo's most celebrated works. Three vertical windows behind the figures, the central window being directly behind Christ, highlighting his figure and importance. The exterior, seen through these windows, suggests a green and lush mountainous landscape. Whereas behind the Twelve Apostles, it is the opposite, suggesting that they were not as valuable as Christ, with non-other than darker, doorway-like spaces behind them.
The meaning of the painting is a festival which remembers the escape of the ancient Israelites from Egypt. Jesus and his disciples were celebrating the Passover meal together. As this was the last meal that Jesus would share with his disciples, he took elements of the Passover meal and made them symbols of his death.
Contemporary art is the art of today, however, it is produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century.
Contemporary art provides opportunities to reflect on society. It often reflects issues or values that are important or talked about in the world at this time. It is part of an ongoing conversation that touches on topics such as identity, community, nationality, spirituality, politics, and more.
An example of contemporary art is Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup,” produced between November 1961 and March or April 1962. Campbell's Soup Cans work suggests a mechanical uniformity that is repeated in the thousands of homes that have a similar object, a banal and common representation of the spirit of our time. Warhol continued to express his ideas about consumerism and kept using repetition in his work. Thus, Warhol creating several works that involved the same theme of Campbell’s Soup Cans throughout the years. The fact that this work look simple to recreate, it gives us the idea that anything can be represented as a piece of art, no matter the subject, context or point in time.
We can learn that religious paintings are used to expound a moral message, as “some say the paintings create an atmosphere that connects their minds with the realm of the spirit like the Buddhist and Islamic paintings which are widely used for meditation purposes.”
But we learn that Contemporary art is important due to its historical value being a product and witness of a specific time and era. It enables us to state, gain insight, and question certain socio-cultural or ideological/political developments, raising awareness, calling the world to a halt, and encouraging debate.
Each image can inspire us to create art no matter how much detail in, if it is a lot of detail like “The Last Supper” and a very simple image like “Campbell’s Soup.” But the scale of theme images can emphasis this by making the viewer ask for a reason why an image so simple is so enlarged.
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