Religion and Art
Colleen Scheck, Producer
We occasionally receive press releases and program suggestions from listeners highlighting the many ways people are exploring the relationship between religion and art. It’s hard to translate visual art to radio, but we’re always talking about other arts programs, especially music, and our website opens up other options for us to consider. One recent alert came from the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore about their current exhibit: All Faiths Beautiful: From Atheism to Zoroastrianism, Respect for Diversity of Belief.
It features works from 50 artists on the subject of belief. They define visionary art as “art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself.” I asked for some examples of the work in the exhibit, and found beauty and mystery in “Untitled” by Edith Valentine Tenbrink and “Triptych (Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha)” by Christina Varga. Varga painted doors she found on a street in New York City. In trying to find an image of Muhammad to compare to her work, she learned about the Islamic tradition of not depicting his image. She chose to adapt it by using calligraphy she found in a Qur’an.
Images courtesy of the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
