Sacred Art 101 (4 of 4): Types of Christian Artwork

Introduction

Having established a framework for analyzing works of art in general, illustrated it with examples, and applied it to the contrast between Iconographic and Illusionistic artwork, we are finally ready to define the different types of representational Christian visual art and their distinctive purposes, characteristics, and contexts.

In the Christian tradition, most representational art with religious-themed subject matter can be divided into four categories: sacred, devotional, historical, and a final type I call Bible-as-literature. Let us consider each in turn.

Sacred

Sacred artwork is, by definition, art that is “set apart” from the mundane for uses and places that command profound respect. From a Christian perspective, the term is best applied to works that are intended or would be appropriate for liturgical settings.

Purpose

Given their association with the Sacraments, the purpose of sacred artwork is to inspire a sense of awe at the transcendent mysteries of the Christian worldview. The liturgy creates what the Irish call a “thin place,” a space where the gulf between the natural and the supernatural narrows to a slender veil. By operating in tandem with the solemn rituals and other sensible Sacramental elements, therefore, sacred art should make the viewer keenly aware of this Divine presence.

Liturgical artwork should also foster in the viewer a sense of belonging, not just with fellow congregants but, more importantly, with the larger community of saints and angels, that “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1) of which the Sacramental participant has become a part. Sacred art is designed to make the onlookers aware that the barriers of time and space have fallen away and that they are united with the faithful of past, present, and future in an act that transcends natural limitations.

Characteristics

We explained in the previous post that this purpose is achieved by prioritizing eschatological vision over earthly realism. This can be accomplished either by employing a formalized style reserved for the sacred, as in the Orthodox tradition, or by means of a truth-affirming Illusionism, as in many Western approaches. Regardless, all proper Christian sacred artwork portrays a realm in which physical confinement, earthly limitations, and human imperfection have melted away to reveal an elevated or glorified reality.

Such a work must in some sense transcend time and space by achieving a certain universality that defies identification with a particular fad or local convention. In creating this sense of universal communion and of awe at the transcendent, the best sacred art is often majestic in scale and scope, a visual symphony of individual components and figures cohering (like the created order in all its manifold complexity) into a grand, unified whole.

It has been argued that, in its purest form, the subject of sacred painting should be explicitly evocative of the Heavenly Banquet of the Book of Revelation—that timeless, cosmic liturgy in which earthly rituals are a participation. But other scenes and subject matter can also be appropriate, as long as they contribute to fostering in the viewer the sense of being caught up in the eternal.

For example, it would be entirely fitting for the sacred altarpiece in, say, a church dedicated to St. Andrew to depict the apostle’s iconic crucifixion, as long as the mode of depiction is focused less on accurately recreating the execution as a historical occurrence or on inspiring certain pious emotions through individual contemplation and more on the breaking-through of the event’s universal spiritual significance.

To summarize, sacred artwork’s subject matter (or a significant element of its subject matter) must be Supernatural and its mode Idealized. These effects can be achieved using styles that range from the Illusionistic to the more Stylized ends of the spectrum, as long as the painting is not so abstract or distorted as to be illegible.

Placement

It should come as no surprise that, being “set aside” by definition, the proper context of Christian sacred art, especially in its narrow sense as liturgical, is limited. Its province is the sanctuary (the architectural “set-aside”) of a church or worship space, and, conversely, the only visual art appropriate for a sanctuary is sacred. Sacred imagery may also appropriately extend out into the nave, especially the front and ceiling, the better to make the congregants feel subsumed into and surrounded by the “great cloud of witnesses.”

Examples

Some examples that epitomize how Western Idealized Illusionism can lend itself to representing the sacred are below.

Glory of the Mystical Lamb, by Giovanni Battista Gaulli (ca. 1680)

Constantine Presented to the Holy Trinity, by Corrado Giaquinto (1742)

Blessed Virgin Mary as Woman of the Apocalypse, by Peter Paul Rubens (ca. 1624)

Virgin Appearing to St. Philip Neri, by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1725)

Less paradigmatic of the genre (and overlapping somewhat with the fourth category below), but still appropriate for placement in a sanctuary, are biblical or Church-historical scenes with a clear eschatological dimension, such as the following.

Abraham and the Three Angels, by Sebastiano Ricci (ca. 1695)

Keys of the Kingdom, by Giovanni Battista Pittoni (ca. 1740)

Devotional

Devotional artwork is sometimes considered a subset of sacred, and there is nothing wrong with this, but it is clearly distinct from the liturgical genre described above—a distinction too often missed by the designers of worship spaces.

Purpose

The aim of devotional art is to inspire personal piety and meditation and to draw the viewer into an intimate personal relationship with Christ, sometimes via interior conversation with his Blessed Mother or another holy patron.

Characteristics

Because the purpose of devotional art is focused on personal intimacy rather than universal communion, this genre is more flexible in its range of artistic expression. A certain degree of Idealization is most appropriate for the depiction of glorified individuals, but the style can vary within the bounds of legibility for the intended audience. The subject matter is often more Natural than in liturgical art and, while Supernatural elements may be featured, the overall emphasis is often on the subject’s approachable (even if Idealized) humanity.

What is almost always true of devotional art, however, is its focus on a personal, one-on-one encounter. Whereas a saint in liturgical art will often be oriented toward a theophany, saints in devotional art are typically directing their gaze and/or body language toward the viewer. Unlike liturgical art, it is often fitting for devotional works to be quite sentimental (not to say kitschy, which would be to take this effect to an inappropriate extreme), since engagement with the emotions can help to foster individual piety and contemplation.

Placement

Within the context of an architectural worship space, devotional art is most appropriate for side chapels or niches. It can also be found in places set aside for personal prayer in homes, other institutions, or even outdoor grottos. It is less suitable for a sanctuary or area around a main altar.

Examples

Sacred Heart (copy), by Pompeo Batoni (ca. 1760)

The Aldobrandini Madonna, by Raphael (ca. 1510)

Pietà, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1876)

Historical

Purpose

The purpose of this category of religious art is to remind viewers of foundational events of past Salvation History, to educate them about the factual details of the occurrences, and ideally to bring these events and their protagonists to life in the mind’s eye.

Characteristics

The subject matter of historical art is typically Natural (though, if a miraculous feat is being depicted specifically as a historical event, then a Supernatural element may be present). Either way, since the aim of the genre is to commemorate the occurrence of the event within time and space, the mode must have a strong element of Realism. While the style can vary, a credible Illusionism often best achieves the aim of giving the viewer a sense for what it would have been like to be present at the happening.

In any case, unlike with sacred or devotional art, priority in historical works is given to accuracy of detail over spiritual significance. The latter need not be neglected, and there is typically some salutary spiritual goal in commemorating the event, but the spiritual vision should never be allowed to overwhelm the historical particularity of the image.

Placement

There is a long tradition of including historical images, especially those pertinent to a community’s local past, in churches, but they should always be placed at a distance from the sanctuary, such as the vestibule or rear of the nave. Not being sacred per se, they are also appropriate for a wide variety of contexts and uses outside of worship, from serving as institutional/domestic décor to appearing as illustrations for textual publications.

Examples

Christ and the Samaritan Woman, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1890)

Jesus at Bethany, by James Tissot (ca. 1890)

Funeral of Charles the Good (detail), by Jan van Beers (1876)

Bible-as-Literature

Many commentators limit religious art to the three categories described above and would see this fourth as some hybrid of the other three. While it is in some ways a hybrid, and while the categories can all overlap at their margins, I feel that there is a sufficient body of Christian work which does not fit neatly into the above classification scheme to justify creating a separate category.

I call this category Bible-as-literature, but it could equally be termed Bible-as-myth (where “myth” is used in the positive sense of “narrative pregnant with meaning” rather than in the negative sense of “narrative devoid of fact”), and occasionally the narratives involved come from Church history rather than the Bible.

Purpose

The aim of Bible-as-literature artwork is to highlight the mythological/metaphorical significance of the narratives that undergird the Christian worldview. Unlike the previous category, this art does not concern itself with the question of the factual foundation of those narratives as history.

Characteristics

Like most historical art, Bible-as-literature art is fundamentally narrative in form, but it deals with timeless themes and archetypes, usually at the expense of accurate historical detail. In this respect, it approaches the stories of the Bible much as Christian artists of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries often treated the mythological tales of Classical antiquity—with profound respect for their importance in shaping our worldview but not to make statements about literal fact.

Its subject matter is typically some combination of the Natural and Supernatural, depending on the story, and the mode Idealized. The style can vary but is often Illusionistic.

Placement

Bible-as-literature art can be appropriate for placement in the nave of a church, including the ceiling. As the genre’s content becomes increasingly eschatological, the lines between this category and that of sacred art can blur, and certain works that straddle the boundary may be fitting for the front of the nave or even the sanctuary. Those with less liturgical character, however, may be entirely appropriate for institutional/domestic décor or as illustrations for textual publications.

Examples

The Flood, by Michelangelo (ca. 1510)

Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well, by Giovanni Lanfranco (ca. 1620)

David with the Head of Goliath, by Domenico Fetti (ca. 1620)

As just stated, some works that blur the division between Bible-as-literature and liturgical art would be appropriate for placement in the sanctuary of a church. But the foregoing examples (which lack overt eschatology and would not be appropriate for such placement) clearly demonstrate why a separate category is needed.

Conclusion

In the aftermath of the doctrinal confusion and neo-iconoclasm of the late twentieth century, momentum is building for a renaissance in Christian religious art, one that returns, not to slavish imitation of, but to building incrementally upon the achievements of the great masters of the Western tradition. This “rebirth,” however, is coming in fits and starts, despite widespread enthusiasm for what it represents.

I would argue that one reason for the difficulty is that today’s patrons and artists, cut off from continuity with the past, are having to rediscover foundational principles implicit in our tradition but not always obvious to the modern mind. Laying the foundation for a true flourishing of Christian visual art requires clarity about the different types, purposes, attributes, and architectural contexts of religious-themed painting. These categories are not necessarily rigid, and, when there is a good reason to do so, the lines among them may be legitimately blurred. Nevertheless, they provide a critical framework for approaching the conception, commissioning, and creation of beautiful artwork that achieves its proper end of elevating souls to contemplation of the Divine.

Further Reading

• Hart, Aidan. “The Sacred in Art and Architecture: Timeless Principles and Contemporary Challenges.” Lecture given at Beauty Will Save the World: Art, Music, and Athonite Monasticism Conference, Cambridge, UK, 4-6 Mar 2005. <Link>

• McNamara, Denis. Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy. Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009.

• McNamara, Denis, and Duncan Stroik. “The Virgin and the Heavenly Hosts: Is There a Conflict between Liturgical and Devotional Art?” Sacred Architecture 14 (2008):14-16.

• Swanson, Cody. “The Human Figure and Contemporary Sacred Art.” Sacred Architecture 31 (2017):28-30. <Link>