10 Examples Of Religious Art (and Their Characteristics)

It cannot be denied that a large part of art history has been nourished by religion. Since Prehistory, human beings have felt the need to express their emotions, their fears and their desires; and, of course, the religious theme has not been left behind. Initially, this was one of the main missions of art: to capture the beliefs of men and women about the afterlife and the meaning of life and death.

This need for religious expression still survives in our days, although it may not seem like it to us (of course, much more diluted). In today’s article we propose a list of some of the most important examples of religious art coming from various and diverse cultures.

10 examples of religious art in various cultures and times

First of all, let’s specify what we consider “religious art.” We call this the artistic expression (in any of its facets and supports) that is related to the beliefs of a specific religion and thus allows its message to be expressed. As we see, this type of art has occurred in all human communities of all times, to a greater or lesser extent. For the list to be sufficiently illustrative, it is necessary to include examples of various religious manifestations from different cultures and times. Because, of course, religious art was not only made in Christian Europe. We cannot cover each and every one of these cultures and periods in such a brief article, but we hope that the selection is to your liking.

1. The Hunefer Papyrus (British Museum, London)

The Book of the Dead is one of the most popular works about the afterlife of ancient Egypt It is a set of texts that collect prayers and magical formulas so that the deceased can correctly transition to eternal life. Specifically, the work we propose is the so-called Hunefer Papyrus, preserved in the British Museum in London. It is one of the many versions that exist of the texts of the Book of the Dead and was made around 1300 BC, in the 19th Dynasty.

The most famous scene is the Judgment of Osiris, where, accompanying the text, we see a series of illustrations that shed light on how the Egyptians saw the postmortem world. We can observe the god Anubis, with his jackal head, carefully weighing the heart of the deceased; Beside him, Thoth, the scribe (with the head of an ibis) waits patiently to record the result. If the heart is heavier than the pen of Maat, Justice, the monster Ammyt (represented crouching and waiting) will devour the deceased and destroy his soul forever.

2. Hermes with Dionysus as a childby Praxiteles (Olympia Museum, Greece)

After the evident schematization and pronounced geometry of the representations of the gods in ancient Egypt (which powerfully influenced the figuration of archaic Greece), the classical and Hellenistic Greek periods represent an important naturalization in religious representation. This is not an irreverence towards the gods, but rather a change of language. Around the 5th century BC, with the era of Pericles, Athens experienced an unprecedented cultural apogee.

Artists like Phidias or Polykleitos create authentic masterpieces, which try to capture the human anatomy down to the smallest detail. However, although there is no doubt that this new art departs considerably from the ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek representations, we should not fall into the error of thinking that the Greeks of the 5th and 4th centuries BC copied reality to strictly speaking, since his human figures followed very specific and idealized canons.

From the Hellenistic period, characterized by greater dynamism in the figures, Praxiteles (4th century BC) is the most outstanding name His Hermes with Dionysus as a Child shows the messenger god with a very youthful, almost adolescent figure, with the artist’s characteristic contrapposto. Next to him, we see Dionysus (the Roman Bacchus), who is still a child. There is nothing in this sculpture that makes us think that those represented are two gods; All of it exudes humanity and spontaneity.

3. Mathura Buddha (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

The Metropolitan Museum of New York preserves a magnificent example of Buddhist sculpture from the Mathura school, which proliferated in India around the 5th century This school was marked by the other great Buddhist school of India, that of Gundhara, but it managed to distance itself from the Greek influence that the latter presented. Thus, the Mathura style is much more indigenous.

One of the main differences between the two schools is that the Mathura school follows greater stylization and geometrization than the Gandhara school. He Buddha from the MET in New York, made of red sandstone, he is standing and dressed in a tunic in which the folds can be guessed by the geometric shapes that the sculptor has given to the stone. The Buddha sports his characteristic ascetic bun and large, elongated earlobes, a symbol of his renunciation of riches, and his gaze is serene and meditative.

4. The Pantocrator of Sant Climent de Taüll (MNAC, Barcelona)

Currently preserved in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), in Barcelona, ​​this wonderful fresco is one of the apotheosis of Romanesque art in the Pyrenees. Originally located in the apse of the church of Sant Climent de Taüll, located in the Catalan Pyrenees, presents Christ in all his majesty (the Pantocrator) who blesses with his right hand and holds a codex with his left in which you can read Ego sum lux mundi (“I am the light of the world”). Christ is surrounded by figures related to the Christian message (the Tetramorphs, several holy apostles, the Virgin Mary…) and with his hieratic and majestic attitude he reminds us of the powerful images of Zeus.

All the spaces of the medieval churches were absolutely polychrome, both with biblical scenes and figures and with plant, geometric or medieval Bestiary motifs. In the Pantocrators Romanesque represents a Christ victorious over death, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We are no longer faced with a naturalistic art as was the art of classical and Hellenistic Greece, but rather we observe a return to the importance of the idea to the detriment of shapesimilar to what the ancient Egyptians did.

5. Coyolxauhqui Monolith (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City)

This spectacular circular monolith of more than 3 meters in diameter was discovered in 1978 among the archaeological remains of the stairs of the Templo Mayor (Mexico City). Its spherical shape and the goddess represented on it tell us about a Mexica lunar deity, the goddess Coyolxauhqui, which literally means “she who adorns herself with bells.”

The myth tells us how Coyolxauhqui was cruelly dismembered by the sun-god, Huitzilopochtli, who came to the defense of her mother, the goddess Coatlicue, whom the goddess of the moon intended to kill for having become pregnant by an unknown being. Coyolxauhqui was also the daughter of Coatlicue (and her sister, therefore, of Huitzilopochtli), and she considered her mother’s pregnancy to be truly shameful.

The story of the dismemberment seems to be clear in the monolith, where the naked goddess appears in a painful attitude and with her limbs twisted and spread over the surface of the stone. One version of the myth tells how Huitzilopochtli placed the severed head of her sister in the sky (the lunar star), so that she could be contemplated.

6. Saint Anne, Virgin and ChildLeonardo da Vinci’s workshop (Prado Museum, Madrid)

The Prado Museum in Madrid houses a beautiful work from Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop (16th century) that shows Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin, Mary and the Child Jesus. The painting follows traditional iconography showing the adult Virgin sitting on her mother’s knees, while, in turn, holding the Child; a clear allusion to the various stages and generations until reaching the Savior.

However, in the work (of clear Nordic influence, as we can see in the profuse landscape in the background) the Virgin is inclined and seems to “fall” from Saint Anne’s lap. And the fact is that Mary tries by all means to keep Jesus away from the lamb with which he is playing, since the animal is an allusion to the child’s future martyrdom

7. Mother and sonDogon sculpture (Louvre Museum, Paris)

The Dogon are an ethnic group located in present-day Mali, very close to the Niger River, in Africa. This town is especially known for its beautiful sculptures, made of wood and closely linked to their religious beliefs. The iconographic diversity is very varied; We can find everything from warriors with weapons to women carrying newborn children in their arms.

The Louvre Museum (Paris, France) preserves a reddish wooden statuette, dating from the 14th century, that shows a woman holding her child. The small work (only 75 cm high) shows significant hieraticism, with the mother sitting very upright and looking in front of her. His body is solved with geometric shapes, and his face is schematic

The composition inevitably reminds us of the virgins theotokos medieval ones who carry Christ on their knees, and also the Egyptian Isis who carry Horus on their lap. The idea, in reality, is very similar: the sacredness of motherhood and its connection with the divine.

8. Ecstasy of Saint Teresaby Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Church of Saint Mary of Victory, Rome)

An authentic baroque apotheosis in marble; this is what this is Santa Teresa by the great Bernini (1598-1680). Not in vain, it is considered one of the masterpieces of the sculptor and of baroque sculpture in general. During the 17th century, the century par excellence of baroque expression, the Catholic Church needed a vehicle to communicate the dogma of faith to its faithful. Let us remember that a little more than a century earlier Luther had opened the way for the split with the beginning of the Protestant Reformation; Rome needed, therefore, a means through which to express what the “true faith” was

Only from this point of view can we understand the dramatization and theatricality so typical of the Baroque, which uses all these tools to provoke strong emotionality in the faithful and ensure their “permanence” in the Catholic faith. Bernini’s Saint Teresa is a beautiful example of this: the artist captures the moment in which the angel pierces the saint with his fiery arrows (a symbol of transverberation or mystical revelation), and the saint throws her head towards the saint with great fuss. back, absolutely ecstatic with emotion.

9. The Holy Family of the little birdby Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Prado Museum, Madrid)

But the Baroque is not only drama and “exaggeration”; It is also everyday life and naturalism. If what the Counter-Reformation intended was to ensure the permanence of the faithful in the Church of Rome, what better way than to make them feel identified with the sacred figures?

Thus, many works depict familiar scenes when they talk about religious scenes. The Holy Family of the little bird by Murillo is a delicious example of this baroque “naturalness”: We see the Holy Family in a very humble room, characterized as any family from the Spanish 17th century The Virgin is in the background, doing her chores, and she looks lovingly at Saint Joseph and the Child, who are playing with a goldfinch, one of the traditional symbols of Jesus. There is nothing on the canvas that refers us to a special sacredness; Rather, it is an everyday scene that any observer of the 17th century could easily identify with his own existence.

10. Annunciationby Dante Gabriel Rosetti (Tate Britain, London)

We are not used to relating the 19th century to religious art, but the truth is that this type of artistic manifestation did not disappear with the arrival of contemporary times. Specific, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood placed great emphasis on the ancient, simple and lost spirituality prior to the advent of the industrial age.

In this Annunciation, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), the great leader of the Brotherhood, represents Mary as what she really was, a teenager, recently awakened from her sleep by the arrival of the angel announcing her pregnancy. The fact that Mary does not “wait” for the archangel by reading or praying patiently, together with the fact that Gabriel does not have wings, caused a great scandal at the time.