Art-Making as Spiritual Practice

Is it possible to consider art-making as a spiritual practice independent of explicit religious belief or content? This open access collection establishes a new paradigm that changes the conversation surrounding the spiritual significance of art.

Where earlier research has focused on the religious significance of secular artworks, this innovative volume turns its attention to the role of the artist, and to specific examples of art practices, putting them into conversation with particular ritual practices.

By creating a web of connections that emerge across multiple disciplines and practices, a team of scholars and artist shed new light on the way art-making and ritual embody non-discursive forms of understanding. Drawing on the work of scholars who argue that ritual practice is central to religious identities, they use close analysis of specific examples to address philosophical issues about the nature of knowledge and spirituality and the relationship between them.

Bringing a practice-centered approach to the study of religion and the arts, this is a rich and in-depth examination of the possibility that art has spiritual meanings that are endemic to the practice of art-making itself.