Art and Theology in Ecumenical Perspective

Which is the relationship between Art and Theology? Which is, substantially, the beating heart that connects them? Is it maybe the notion of ‘divine’ to which both pertain, that is, the inspiration that permeates at the same time the man and his faculty of expressing himself? Or is it the hope, the faith in a design, in a project (ultimately) in common?

The topic is for sure interesting, rooted in the history of mankind since the origins, the origins of his being ‘man who creates’, who externalizes himself in a work ‘to show and witness himself’, that is, capable of telling us his interior universe, giving it a shape and an expression; a sort of act of procreation where the ‘I’ manages to be at the same time himself and an ‘alterity’ that, though, even better gives him a meaning. It is an antique and strongly current topic: we still wonder about it, fascinated by the potentials of such a parallelism, by the unexplored worlds that it may disclose to the consciousness, once that a deep reflection has been started. This is the case of the cycle of conferences entitled Art and Theology that took place, divided in five dates – the first three between France and Italy and the last two in October in the United States – during 2017.

The volume, edited by Msgr. Timothy Verdon, is very dense and characterized by an elevated intellectual and analytical stock, divided in four macro-sections: the first one deals with a general definition of the ground that the analysis aims at exploring – the topic’s boundaries are traced, we try to answer the question ‘what does the relationship between Art and Theology mean’, that is, we draw a premise; the second part analyses that relationship following the common thread of Spirituality, the Holy Spirit, starting from the sacred texts; the third filters the analysis focusing on the Medieval and Renaissance period, while the fourth on the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The last section, in conclusion, faces the vast enygma Art-Theology concerning the modern and contemporary times. The reader travels accompanied by a plurality of voices that alternate one to another, where in harmony coexist glimpses of history and sacredness, religion and human talent.