Religion & Art

I found the class discussion on Wednesday regarding religion and art to be quite interesting. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and found it amazing, which is pretty remarkable considering I don’t take a keen interest in art. I spent my time mostly looking at Egyptian art, particularly sculptures depicting burial rituals, and South Asian art, namely religious statues and carvings. The painstaking details of carvings on sarcophaguses and how burial rituals were carried out were marvelous. Every piece of art had its own story and there were passages connecting each room within the section that enriched my experience immensely. The South Asian section of the museum was dominated by religious images from the great periods of South Asian sculpture, between the second century B.C and about A.D 1500. Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain deities are depicted in ideal human forms to symbolize their transcendent and divine natures. The styles and forms are heavily influenced by the culture in which the art is made. For example, there is a heavy Buddhist influence in the Hindu god Shiva’s sculpture because Shiva takes up the posture commonly seen in the sculptures of Buddha, in a very peaceful meditating form, surrounded by attendants, very similar to Buddha being attended upon by the Bodhisattvas. The base that he sits on is decorated in details and this representation of Shiva is comparable to the “Seated Buddha from Gandhara”.

Modern art, however, differs very much from ancient artwork because the secular movement in modern art attempts to bypass the ‘package’ or social aspect of religion, while tying into more universally human characteristics. Mr. Smith also mentioned that while Pollock does not give his viewers a complete package of religion through his paintings, he gives us some aspects of the ‘big picture’ religion. His painting ‘Guardian of the secret’ can be interpreted in several ways by different people. I interpreted it as six figures surrounding a fallen body holding what could be the secret referred to in the title. The other work of art shown in class, whose name escapes me, was the kind of painting he is famous for, drip paintings. It seemed that the red paint and white paint was dripped over something elaborately drawn in the background in black paint, with the all the three colors seemingly converging together. Although much of older art has not been preserved and religious artifacts mainly survive, particularly in South Asian culture, modern art has largely shifted away from particular religious subjects and concentrates on particular features drawn out of ‘big picture religion’.