Monday 3 September 2012

Religious Art in Our Cultures

Having read "The Sacred Realm of Art" (Hartmann, 2007, pp. 78 - 79), we now want to follow up Hartmann's invitation and suggestion in the discussion exercise F. on page 82 that we apply the same sort of analysis to our own cultures; we will do this as a response writing exercise here.

Hartmann's three prompt questions, slightly revised, to get us thinking are:
  • What kinds of religious art can you find in your culture? (Sculpture? Paintings? Architecture? Other?)
  • What are some topics of this art? 
  • Does this art make the religion more visible? Explain your answer. 
Since this is a response writing activity, a discussion rather than an academic essay, feel free to share your ideas as you like. 

__________
Reference
Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

6 comments:

  1. In the art of Buddhism, there are sculpture, painting and architecture, which you can see at Thai temple, such as Temple of Emerald Buddha, Wat Pho, Wat Saket (Golden Mountain) and so on.

    The topic of Buddhist art is mostly the life of Buddha which you can see trough painting and sometimes sculpture.

    Obviously yes, this art make Buddhism more visible. Because you can see, touch and feel that more concrete. Moreover you can bring that with you like small figure of Buddha in our necklace.

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  2. Although Australia is no longer a religious country, there is a lot of art that reminds Australians daily of the importance that religion used to have in society: there are old churches every where, usually set on the best pieces of land. These examples of architecture are easily identified as products of Christianity - their imposing size impresses, the straight lines end in needles pointing to the heavens, and they are often laid out in a cross shape. The largest building in the small town I grew up near is the Catholic church, and every little village has it's church, most now falling into disuse as Australians stop believing in any gods and religions.

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    Replies
    1. And Mo's comment, posted while I was writing mine, reminds me that inside these churches there is a lot of other art that depicts important figures and stories from the Christian bible.

      Again, to take the example of the church in my local town, there are statues of Jesus, his mother Mary and his father Joseph. The walls are adorned with paintings showing important events in the life of Jesus, from the angel that announced his birth to Mary, to his resurrection three days after being put to death as a criminal. In fact, every Catholic church has similar art depicting the important events in the life of Jesus.

      And when I was in primary school, I was entranced by the hymns and music, which powerfully moved the emotions of people come to celebrate the Sunday mass, something my family never missed, although these days only my mother goes.

      This YouTube video of the start of Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor is a superb example not only of the importance of music in religion in Western culture, but also shows some amazing architecture.

      My own local childhood church is much more modest, and we did not have a full symphony orchestra and singers.

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  3. The religious art in my culture that I find is Painting. I used to see the painting from TV show that show the history of buddhism in the wall of the temple where is in Chiangrai Province. The artist that paint the art is Arjarn Chalermchai Kositpipat who is the famous artist of Thailand.

    The topic of this painting is the history of buddhism. It show the history of Buddha that begin from he was born when he grew up and became to the monk. Next, he concentrated to search for finding the methodology that made the people who freedom from the cycle of birth, old, pain, death and rebirth. Then, he could achieve his goal. After that, he public this knowledge and touch this principle to the other people until they accept and agree with it. Finally, he got nirvana when his old was eighty.

    The painting is look like the real thing and can visible. The detail of the painting is beautiful when I see and listen describe about it in the same time that make me felt like saw a movie. And recognized to the event that used to happen in the history of Buddhism.

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  4. In art of buddhism, I can find sculpture at the temple. For example, I see giant sculpture stand in front of Pagoda in the Royal Grand Palace. I think that this sculpture informs a porter who takes care of sacred object. Whenever I look at this sculpture, I feel frightened.

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  5. It's clear for Thai people as we can see a number Buddha sculptures and also painting in many temples show the story of Biddhist religion. We can fing these in different religions like Catholic belief as wel, such as cathedrals in Europe.

    I think this kind of art can make religions to be more visible and tangible for example, amulets which some thais hang it in order to protect them from danger or bad spirits as well.

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