Christians in the Visual Arts

Christians are not new participants or important benefactors of visual art that transcend time and culture. They produce works often reflecting deep spiritual truths, which are theology, storytelling and worship in image. Art has been the tool of religious communication, of biblical exposition, and of edification since the beginning of Christianity. In the early Christian period’s mosaics, frescoes and illuminated manuscripts, there is a deliberately nuanced marriage of artistic genius and theological depth.

The visual arts were an important medium for Christian discourse, especially in the medieval period, when literacy was low and images were the chief means of transmission of sacred messages. Eastern Orthodox iconography and Gothic cathedral windows show powerful ways in which artists translated deep theological principles into visual language. They were not ornaments; they were vessels of worship, prayer and instruction, the creation of a shared experience of Christian teaching and the bible.

The Renaissance brought Christian artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci who made religious art to unsurpassed levels, marrying religion with humanism. They were perfect examples of the spiritual-human connection: Godly subjects were rendered sympathetically, appealing to the spiritual as well as the intellectual audience. In the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, for example, we can see more than Michelangelo’s technical genius: it’s an exploration of humanity’s relation to the divine, as it unfolds in the unfolding of the Bible.

In the Renaissance, Christian visual artists re-established what it means to be artistic: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Renaissance artists married humanist values with religious themes and played with the relationship between divine and human. Michelangelo’s ceiling at the Sistine Chapel illustrates this perfectly, in that it shows how vast God’s creation was, and how human beings fit into it. And so, too, was a new emphasis on realist authenticity and anatomical precision, on the incarnation of Christ as fully divine and fully human.

Christianity’s union with visual art did not end in Europe: it exploded across the globe, taking up new cultural spaces. Latin America, where indigenous themes combined with Christian imagery, created their own artistic forms – in the complex forms of mission churches and church artefacts. Nor did Ethiopian Christian art, its unique design and colours provide us with a window into the localisation of the religion, an expression of the culture of its believers while remaining grounded in universal Christian ideas.

New risks and new horizons were presented to Christian artists in the contemporary age. The rise of abstract and conceptual art stretched the visual possibilities of religion. Artists like Georges Rouault and Marc Chagall rode this trend, making new uses of modernist artmaking to approach spiritual issues. Their writings were often about the human condition, suffering and salvation, riffing on gospel wisdom as much as they addressed the contemporary conversation of art.

The modern period also offered Christians in visual arts new challenges and new prospects. When art became abstract and conceptual, the forms and subjects replaced with more metaphysical discussions of spirituality and existence. Christian artists such as Georges Rouault and Marc Chagall borrowed from modernist practices to represent religion, mixing invention with spiritual study. Rouault’s heavy, black lines and light colours recalled stained glass while discussing pain and salvation.

It is also possible for Christian artists to work with non-Christian audiences, expressing their works outside of the church. By playing on subtle symbolism, universalism and evocation, these artists invite viewers to ponder higher issues of life, virtue and transcendence. And in so doing they provide a dialogue between sacred and profane art.

The Christian visionary has not abandoned community or collaboration. : Christian artists can show work and talk to each other about faith and creativity through art groups, galleries and organisations. These platforms inspire collective purpose, wherein artists are challenged to push the limits of culture but never lose their spiritual core.