Religion and Art Rethinking Aesthetic and Auratic Experiences in ʻPost-Secularʼ Times Edited by Davor Džalto Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religion and Art Religion and Art Rethinking Aesthetic and Auratic Experiences in ’Post-Secular’ Times Special Issue Editor Davor Dzaltoˇ MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade Special Issue Editor Davor Dzaltoˇ The American University of Rome Italy Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) in 2019 (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special issues/ Religion and Art) For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03921-032-9 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03921-033-6 (PDF) Cover image courtesy of Davor Dzalto.ˇ c 2019 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Special Issue Editor ...................................... vii Preface to ”Religion and Art” ....................................... ix Davor Dzaltoˇ The Aesthetic Face of the Sacred Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 302, doi:10.3390/rel10050302 ................... 1 Graham Ward Aesthetics, Music, and Meaning-Making Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 215, doi:10.3390/rel10030215 ................... 6 Oleg Bychkov “He Who Sees Does Not Desire to Imagine”: The Shifting Role of Art and Aesthetic Observation in Medieval Franciscan Theological Discourse in the Fourteenth Century Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 205, doi:10.3390/rel10030205 ................... 15 Diane Apostolos-Cappadona ‘... With a Book in Your Hands’: A Reflection on Imaging, Reading, Space, and Female Agency Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 178, doi:10.3390/rel10030178 ................... 28 Daniel Gustafsson Beyond Making and Unmaking: Re-Envisioning Sacred Art Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 89, doi:10.3390/rel10020089 .................... 41 Randall K. Van Schepen Contemporary Misticism: Recovering Sensible Aesthetics in an Age of Digital Production Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 186, doi:10.3390/rel10030186 ................... 54 James Romaine Beyond Belief: Chance, Authorship, and the Limits of Comprehension in Gerhard Richter’s Strip Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 275, doi:10.3390/rel10040275 ................... 65 Victor Bychkov Aesthetic Experience as a Spiritual Support of Homo Post-Secularis Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 250, doi:10.3390/rel10040250 ................... 82 v About the Special Issue Editor Davor Dzaltoˇ is President of The Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity, and Associate Professor of Art History and Religious Studies at The American University of Rome. He has published extensively in the domains of the theology of personhood, Orthodox Christian political philosophy, history and theory of modern and contemporary art, Orthodox Christian art, and iconography. He is also active as a visual artist, working in the media of painting, drawing, and objects/installations. vii Preface to ”Religion and Art” Since the beginning of modernity, the relationship between art and religion has been a multifaceted one, characterized both by tensions and by productive exchanges. One can claim that the modern concept of “art” (and the corresponding modern institution of art) has been one of the “secular–religious” expressions of modernity. The language we have been employing to characterize the domain of “fine arts” and “esthetic” experiences has been remarkably “religious”. We “meditate” in front of artworks; art allows us to experience a “spiritual” excitement; we make pilgrimages to see and venerate masterpieces in their (secular) sacred spaces (e.g., museums) that require a special decorum, inspiring the atmosphere of devotion. In this way (and following the lead provided by Walter Benjamin) we are witnessing an exchange between the “aura” of devotional (religious-esthetic) objects, and the “aura” of (secular–religious) artworks. This exchange of “auratic” experiences can also be seen in the exchange of roles between traditional sacred spaces (churches) and modern (secular–sacred) museums: modernity has turned museums into places of silent worship of sacred objects (artworks), while churches have become exhibition spaces where most of the visitors go to see artworks and not to celebrate the Eucharist. The most recent developments testify to yet another reversal. Increasingly busy museum spaces—with their ever-expanding use of technology and under constant pressure to embrace “participatory culture”—are becoming less and less of the old-fashioned quiet spaces with a focus on esthetic contemplation in front of a piece of art. Churches, on the contrary, are providing such a context for carrying out practices associated with the traditional role of the museum, outside the time of church services. All of this presents us with the need to reconsider the question of the relationship between art, religion, and the sacred. How can we think of the “aura” of (sacred) contexts and (sacred) works? How to think of individual and collective (esthetic–religious) experiences? What to make of the manipulative dimension of (religious and esthetic) “auratic” experiences? Is the work of art still capable of mediating the experience of the “sacred” and under what conditions? What is the significance of the “eschatological” dimension of both art and religion (the sense of “ending”)? Can theology offer a way to reaffirm the creative capacities of the human being as something that characterizes the very condition of being human? This Special Issue aspires to contribute to the growing literature on contemporary art and religion, and to explore the new ways of thinking of art and the sacred (in their esthetic, ideological, and institutional dimensions) in the context of contemporary culture. Davor Dzaltoˇ Special Issue Editor ix religions Editorial The Aesthetic Face of the Sacred Davor Džalto 1,2 1 The Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; [email protected] 2 The American University of Rome, Via Pietro Roselli 2, 00153 Rome, Italy Received: 22 April 2019; Accepted: 25 April 2019; Published: 1 May 2019 Scene 1: You enter a church—let us say it is a traditional Orthodox Church setting—to attend a church service. Immediately, you find yourself immersed in a profoundly aesthetic environment, which evokes a variety of rich sensory experiences. You smell incense, the clouds of which fill the space of the church, infused alongside the scent of the burning wax from the candles. You listen to the chanting. You see richly decorated priestly vestments, in white, red, green, gold visually resonating with the colorful paintings—icons—on the iconostasis and on the walls. Toward the end of the service, if you are a believer and an active member of the Church, you taste the Eucharist—you eat the bread and wine—the flesh and blood of Christ. To a believer, all of these sensations are pregnant with a religious, spiritual meaning. As a believer, you may even claim that you experience the sacred, that you actually see the invisible, sense the insensible. You may claim (following the belief of the Church) that you have (fore) tasted the sacred, that you have become one with the (eschatological) reality of the coming Kingdom of God. You realize that there is no exclusion between the spiritual (eschatological) and the material (historical), between the visible and the invisible, between the sensory and the in-experienceable, between the thinkable and the unthinkable. They become mystically (that is, in an iconic manner) united, without confusion. For a believer, the aesthetic dimension is capable of communicating something that does not (fully) exist in our world; aesthetic elements give a “foretaste” of the future Kingdom of God. If you are a non-believer, however, all of these (spiritual-sensory) experiences in their phenomenal dimension remain “purely” aesthetic experiences no matter how intense or profound, no matter how sense-, imagination- and thought-provoking they may be. Scene 2: You enter one of the major churches in Rome, known for their artistic riches. If you are a believer, say one of the pilgrims, you probably experience the “sacredness” of the space upon stepping inside. The church, after all, houses many of the relics of Christian saints. Many important personalities and events from church history have been associated with this specific place. The paintings that decorate the apse, the nave, or the side chapels, the sculptures that depict religious scenes and personalities, make sense to you as part of the liturgical environment—as a way to help you immerse yourself more fully into the liturgical sacraments and the mystery of the divine–human communion. On the other hand, to a non-believer, say a specialist interested in painting or architecture, or even just a tourist visiting