Steven,
"Curious about the link you imply between religion and art. While they can coexist, I wouldn't say the presence of one is necessary to achieve the other. Would you?"
Neither is contingent on the other.They complement, and often enable one another. They emerge from the same place in humanity's psyche--that place that yearns to communicate the ineffable. Art (specifically music, painting, dance, and architecture) is the language of emotion, and communicates things words alone cannot.
In my recent visit to D.C. I visited the Viet Nam Memorial for the first time. It was an incredible visual statement whose emotion words can't approach. The Washington Monument, The Taj Mahal, The Sphinx, and The Great Pyramids all speak to us on a preverbal (and occasionally, metaphysical) level much as the aural experiences of Beethoven's 5th, Barber's Adagio . . .the paintings of Rothko, Van Gogh, Picasso . . . the dances of the Hopi, the Dervishes. . .
Religion, as an analog to art, communicates the spiritual realm in myth, symbol,and ritual -- often employing art as a medium.
Rick |
