The Sacred Heart of Jesus: The Visual Evolution of a Devotion

by David O. Morgan

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been controversial from its beginning in the life of the French Visitationist nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who established the devotion after a series of mystical visions of Christ. Under the leadership of Sister Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800, the devotion was taken around the world in the course of the nineteenth century. Wherever it went, the devotion took the shape of an evolving visual culture. Evenduring Alacoque’s lifetime, imagery was a fundamental part of practicing the devotion. The Sacred Heart of Jesus traces the unfolding visual biography of the Sacred Heart, showing how imagery and visual practice document the history of the devotion and the remarkable range of its evolution.

Genres: Art, History

50 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2008

Reviews

[Jacques Defraigne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a good historic work that explains the evolution of the graphic representation of the Sacred Heart devotion. The style of writing is very stiff however and although it provides very valuable historic information, the supernatural aspect of the devotion as well as the concept of revelation isn't being taken serious enough to make this a great read.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

++Commends on Teilhard de Chardin towards the end. This books succeeds at its aim in conveying the formal-symbolic history of the Sacred Heart, and its progressive "symbolization" over time.