Devotional Art & Text

The creative arts have always played a vital role in Christian worship: in painting, sculpture, poetry, and music. With color, shape, language, and sound the arts inspire wonder and lift the gaze to eternal things. Beauty is a path to God, the source of all beauty. The arts can open our hearts to the infinite and elevate our thoughts - as light through a stained glass window becomes a flow of divine grace that draws the spirit toward God. Wonders & Grace is my offering of art inspired by faith

One particularly beautiful form of devotional art is the ‘Illuminated Manuscript’, such as the ancient prayer book called The Book of Hours.

Illuminated manuscripts are handwritten books that are intricately illustrated and decorated with richly colored pigments and gold leaf. They contain text and imagery designed to enhance and nurture devotion and prayer. The artists, nearly all anonymous, who created the original manuscripts were highly talented and trained, and were themselves devoted to their sacred work. In this way, the creation of visual art and written text became itself an act of praise and a form of worship.

Another type of devotional art is Iconography, which is created to provide the viewer with a gateway from the visible and physical world into the mystery of the unseen, spiritual world. Through form and content, art can serve as a window, or a passageway, into divine life.

Andrei Rublev’s Trinity Icon is perhaps the most famous in the world and whole books have been written on its metaphysics and revelatory implications for the Christian seeker. Gazing upon it, the viewer senses an encounter, with divine presence and divine truth, that is beyond words. Mystery is not merely something that cannot be understood, but rather that which is continually unfolding, and revealing itself; the mystery of God is approached with both trembling and wonder, with both reverence and joy.

My interest in devotional art has led me to explore how I might incorporate aspects of it into my own artwork, collage, and writing.