Art and Religion

The course has the following objectives :

- Questioning the relationships between art and religion in the long history of Christianity. It mainly focuses on the moments of crisis (Byzantine image quarrel in the 8th century, war of religions in the 16th century, quarrel of sacred art in the 20th century) in order to show how this relationships have been incriminated or defended.

- starting from concrete examples, a reflection on the status, functions and uses of religious images and on the place of the arts (essentially painting and sculpture) within Christianity, with an opening towards other religions (especially Islam and Judaism).

By the end of this course, the student should be able to undertake critical reflection into the aesthetic, theological and iconological issues at stake in the relationships between arts and religions.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Theoretical expositions about relationships between arts and religion (see object of the activity) and study of some works of art with religious stamp.