Talk:Christian art

Christian Art today is finding a resurgence among Catholics and Protestants
Does anybody have any hallmark examples of people who are leading modern-day christian artistic movements?

Also, I removed a comment related to "young christians" as the term does not relate to all christians. Also, even if the sentence were altered to only include Catholics and Protestants then I disagree with the usage of young as it is too relative (who is young? teenagers? 30 year olds? someone younger than you?). Adding this in is purely fluff and only adds to the question "If more 'young' people are working on christian art, then where is it and who are they?". Even skimming the surface of this rather broad question would be more useful than the sentence that was removed.

-- sp 00n  17 :color="#555577">talk 20:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like to know if there is any reason why some crucifixions are represented with three nails (one nail for the two feet) while others have four (two nails for the feet).

Removing nonsense
In an effort to keep this page on topic about overarching topics in christina art, I removed the following:

Original Text: Christians were often the innovators in the area of architecture because of their desire to communicate the transcendance of God. This was clearly seen as early as in the 4th Century with the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople(currently Istanbul). Before the Reformation, and the invention of the printing press, most people were not literate, and therefore the artwork in the churches and the buildings themselves were the primary form in which the Bible stories were communicated.

Principle reasons: -- sp 00n  17 :color="#555577">talk 19:08, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Not all churches were built to convey the desire to communicate "the transcendance of god". Many churches were made to resemble boats or crosses and most certainly, not all churches are Hagia Sophia.
 * 2) After the Reformation everybody in all of Christendom didn't learn how to read, which the statement "Before the Reformation, and the printing press, most people were not literate.." would have you to believe.


 * No, your logic is incorrect, I believe, on the second point. The sentence does NOT imply that "everybody in all of Christendom" learned to read after the invention of the printing press.  It says that before the press, MOST people didn't know how to read, implying that afterward, they did.  Not all people, but most, or significantly more.


 * And I did learn in art history that prior to the printing press, religious artwork and symbols were used to educate Christians on their stories, characters and concepts. No not EVERYONE learned to read after the printing press was invented and Bibles began to be printed, but a whole lot more people did, it revolutionized society and religion, and reading a copy of the Bible directly (or having someone reading it to you) replaced the use of icons and imagery to educate Christians.VatoFirme 03:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Christian Art as a general topic
I cleaned up the Christian art page to represent the most generic aspects of Christian art. Examples specific to a particular denomination are encouraged to link off of this page, but keep this page otherwise as generic as possible.

Of course the more interesting topic, Sexuality and Christian Art is its own node now and is linked off of this page in the "human conditions" section. Sp00n17 08:13, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Addressing Contemporary Christian Art
Per Sp00n's comment/request I have added info relating to the trend setters in Contemporary Christian art. It would be great if we could get some examples of their work to add to the page... anyone know how to do that?

thx!

Ron DiCianni
The first to do this successfully was Ron DiCianni, who in 1992 created a painting called Spiritual Warfare'' which went on to become one of the best selling Limited Edition Prints of the decade. As DiCianni blazed the trail he influenced others to join him in what he described as a mission of "Reclaiming the Arts for Christ"tm. As other artists began to join DiCianni and decided to make the transition to painting solely Christ centered art some standouts began to emerge.''

I have moved this to talk because it is totally un-referenced and reads like spam. Needs something to back this up. Fountains of Bryn Mawr 14:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference to current artists re-added
The following was added by request of the community...

"The first to do this successfully was Ron DiCianni, who in 1992 created a painting called Spiritual Warfare which went on to become one of the best selling Limited Edition Prints of the decade. As DiCianni blazed the trail he influenced others to join him in what he described as a mission of "Reclaiming the Arts for Christ"tm. As other artists began to join DiCianni and decided to make the transition to painting solely Christ centered art some standouts began to emerge."

Bryn Mawr, you should not have deleted it. It is not SPAM, it is relevant to the subject, as he is the foremost living Christan Artist and directly relates back to a reviewer request to discuss, by name, contemporary Christan articles (see above). Had you done a Google search for his Bio you will see he's one of the most widely published of any living artist and considered my many to be the top Christian artist in the country. I think that a reference to the top Christian artist would be relevant in a discussion of "Christian Art"... don't you? Especially if you're keeping direct name references to much lesser known Christan artists. thx. -MonkezUncleMonkezUncle 08:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Bryn Mawr, and I have removed this again, since it has been uncited for months, refers to a non-notable (has no Wikipedia entry) genre artist, and is essentially a reference to popular devotional art rather than the kind of fine art works referenced in the rest of the article. Rbreen 10:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Not True
"The development of Christian art in the Byzantine empire (see Byzantine art) continued the oriental and Hellenistic previously known trends."

That isn't true at all, or at the least it is worded badly - Byzantine art moved away from Hellenistic naturalism and started looking more like Egyptian art (which may be what is meant by "oriental" here? But there are a lot of people who object to Egypt being considered part of the "orient"), because it became hieratic: ignoring perspective and proportion and instead focused on geometric shapes and visual hierarchies to show abstract Christian concepts (e.g. Christ is always really big and placed directly above other people in an unrealistic, flat space).VatoFirme 03:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Secular vs. Sacred Art
The statement is made that art with the saints and Mary is less frequent in Protestant art. A reason commonly asserted for this is less division between the sacred and secular in Protestant art. I think this would be good to add to the Christian art section. I also believe this can be greatly expanded as the sacred vs. religious art distinction is not as critical as it would seem in defining Christian art as an art category. I believe there is an overemphasis in defining what Christian art is by defining it as sacred art alone. I assert that Christian art is a social artifact of Christian artists and communities and the influence on the secular of these cultural artifacts of art and consequently the category of Christian art is not solely defined by the presence of a religious theme. These are not my ideas but the ideas of sociologists and modern art historians that have increasingly become aware of a much earlier influence on art by Christianity then was previously accepted and a much larger influence on secular art then commonly accepted. I do not think these divisions are clear at all and this should be part of the Christian art section. A assert there is secular Christian art.

I provide this URL for consideration in discussing this topic.



M Baun (talk) 04:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Symbolism section
I am new VERY to contributing to wikipedia... this is my first post ever.

I'd like to suggest a change to the symbolism section of this article. Now, it currently states:

"... nor is the Bible the same work of literature for each sect."

To a non-Christian, this may sound like every sect of Christianity has its own version of the Bible. I suggest we take one of two actions:

1. Remove this part of the sentence since it does not really apply to Christian art.

2. Edit it to read something like:

". Further, some sects include books in the Bible that others do not, and modern translations of the Bible may use source documents from different eras with slight differences."  See Bible.

Rawert (talk) 13:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

External Link to Christian Art Gallery?
New here.. Hey! Need advice on adding article content and external link here? On me- I am a lifelong collector of the Art of Christ and an authorized dealer for 8 years of nearly 400 artworks/125 artists with a local & online gallery solely of Jesus.

On article- Adding to Modern or a new "Today" section. Dislike the kitsh (=junk) reference in last section seemingly speaking to "reproductions" of original works? How else would we have these? I want to add info (or seperate article?) on modern Christian art changes (1950s-today) and also speak to why this type of art's local (everyones) availablility fell drastically over the past 10 years and surely list some top artists. I feel certain I can get permissions to display a few of my artist's examples.

On External link- As reference to above & overall, my online art gallery has nearly 400 images in a slideshow format by sections like: Baby Jesus, with Children, His Life, etc. "Christ's Life & Message through Art" basis. The gallery and webstore are named differently and on 2 different domains but there are obvious links between them. Since this is a large collection of multi-denominational Jesus art, I feel its very informative & inspirational to folks looking into Christian art, seeing many they never knew and getting a clearer understanding of Christ as almost every scene (1 missing?) is represented. However it does provide links to buy.

Could someone comment on interest in my article idea and review the site to see if it would be a good external link as is or what store link changes I should make to be so? Here is the slideshow link- Thanks! Dixiedebva (talk) 21:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest you try advertising your website and your gallery on Craigslist or somewhere like that. Wikipedia already has enough spam-type links and is not suitable for this. History2007 (talk) 15:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The first source listed in the article leads to a dead link.
The first source listed in the article leads to a dead link. Needs to be amended, but I'm not very well versed in religious subjects. Lemonzingertea (talk) 13:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)