Religion, Art, and Visual Culture: A Cross-Cultural Reader

by S. Brent Plate (Editor)

Religion, Art, and Visual Culture is a cross-cultural exploration of the study of visuality and the arts from a religious perspective. This forward looking and accessible collection gathers together the most current scholarship for those interested in art, religion, visual culture, and cultural studies. Inherently interdisciplinary, this reader approaches the study of world religions through the human, meaning-making activity of seeing. The volume oscillates between specific visual subjects (painting, landscape gardens, calligraphy, architecture, mass media) and the broader theoretical discourses which are relevant to Humanities students today.

Genres: Art, Judaism

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2002

Reviews

[Emma Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite difficult to get into compared to other works by Brent Plate. Some interesting and thought provoking chapters on how our eyes perceive sacred objects and the visual culture of major religions.

The pictures included in the book to illustrate some key arguments are poor quality which is disappointing.

[Anne Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice tour through the field of religion and visual culture. I like how the editor picked a major form of visual culture for each religion, as this helped make it more readable. Selections from this are ideal for an undergraduate class in the areas of visual/material culture, pop culture, cultural studies, etc, and religion. However, I have had students struggle to understand a couple of the readings, and some portions might be advanced for intro courses. The "Darshan" section is particularly recommended.

[Allen O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this volume. It gives the reader a smattering of texts from the scholars of different world religions and case-specific explorations of sacrality and visual culture. Plate does a fantastic job curating and introducing each portion, making the whole very readable.