Does Religious Art have any Relevance in Today's Society?

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Does Religious Art have Relevance in Today’s Society?

In the past, many religions have used art to reach out to the illiterate masses and teach then the way of deities. In Italy, frescoes were painted to teach the poor and uneducated (who were not learned enough to read the holy book) the stories and parables of the Christian Holy Bible, by depicting scenes of the testaments both new and old. This was an attempt to make Christianity accessible to everyone, which is one of the many teachings within the bible. In Hinduism the many gods and avatars are represented using the 64 traditional arts that range from classic music pieces, songs and sculpture to the adornment of jewellery and plays of holy stories, with symbolism used throughout each, the most common being the lotus flower representing gentleness and peace and extra arms, legs or heads which are used to symbolise power and strength. But in today’s society of growing religious arrogance and high literacy rates (in the West at least) does religious art still maintain its importance?

It certainly does for museums and art galleries, in an economic way at least. Salvador Domenec Felip Jacint Dali I Domenech, Marquis of Dali de Pubol or as he is most commonly known Salvador Dali, one of the worlds most celebrated artists and one of the most photographed men of his time, owes at least some of his immense fame to religious art as most of his surrealist paintings contain many religious undertones and symbolism. Some of his work is very obvious in it’s religious themes such as ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony,’ the print ‘The Birth of a God’, or ‘Christ of St. John of the Cross’ which remains the most popular exhibit ever to be shown in St. Mungoes Church of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow, which just goes to show that when these pieces and others like them are displayed anywhere in any gallery across the world they are guaranteed to attract an absolute flood of visitors and their wallets.

But Salvador Dali isn’t the only person to inject their beliefs about religion into popular culture through the medium of art. Take for example a young singer-songwriter by the name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germonatta (Lady Gaga to you and me) who has expressed her deep passion and connection to religion in not only her song lyrics and at several gay rights rally’s, but most strongly in her music video for ‘Alejandro’ the final single released from her last album ‘The Fame Monster’ where she wears several out fits resembling traditional Christian uniforms such as a nuns habit and a long, red and white, hooded coat bearing the Christian cross. Her latest single ‘Born This Way’, is mostly made up of tributes to god such as the lyrics ‘I’m beautiful in my way, because God makes no mistakes’. The famous Madonna (birth name Madonna Louise Ciccone) has also used religion in her work with songs like, ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ and ‘Just Like a Prayer’. But probably the most successful and controversial use of religion in recent popular culture would be a best selling and controversial book, which caused major anger within the Christian community.

‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown, a fictional book about a man called Robert Langdon who uncovers riddles and signs within the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, the master behind the infamous ‘The Last Supper’. Langdon soon begins to know too much and leaders of Opus Dei, a Catholic organisation that Dan Brown exaggerates into being a group of catholic priests who strive to protect the secrets about Christ to the rest of the world, start trying to kill Langdon off before he can get the holy grail, the holiest of Christian artefacts. The book was incredibly popular in 2004 and it’s sales were beat only by J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ and has so far sold over 80 million copies world wide while causing much controversy and anger within the Catholic and Christian communities and among supporters of Opus Dei. When a movie of the book was being made the director Ron Howard was urged by many leaders and followers of the Christian and Opus Dei faiths to clearly state that the book and movie were completely fictional, and in no way at all factual. Howard refused and the movie went ahead. People thought the story blasphemous and anti-Christian and even though Dan Brown insisted that it was a work of total fiction, he became hated by many of the Christian faith, one cardinal from the Vatican even appealed to Catholics and other branches of Christianity to join him in an effort to ban the book and the film. "Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," said Francis Arinze. The prelate of Nigeria (who was a contender to become Pope in 2005), when he made his opnion clear in the Documentary ‘The Da Vinci Code: a Masterful Deception’, "Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others." To me, this story goes to show that religious art still has a way of bring out the passion in people and the will to fight for their beliefs. While a novel may not be considered a form of religious art, it certainly took more than a little skill from Dan Brown to make the book so believable and so powerful that it caused upheaval in the Vatican and Brown himself to receive death threats. In a way, the book brought Opus Dei, Catholosism and other branches of Christianity together in fury over the slandering of their faith which some may not see as important per say, but what can not be disputed is the fact that the book amassed millions of dollars and made the headlines of newspapers all over the world, becoming one of the most talked about subject of 2004 onward and one of the most famous books of all time.

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Many people still argue that artists and writers such as the above mentioned include religion in ther work merely to shock people and cause controversy to hopefully get their name or work in the papers and therefore become better known, and why wouldn’t they? It works! As I said ‘The Da Vinci Code’ sold over 80 million copies, Lady Gaga’s video for Alejandro has  over 120 million veiws on Youtube while her newest single which was released only a month ago has a total of just below the 50 million mark, and almost 30 years after her debut Madonna is ...

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