This study attempts to bring together a number of ideas and problems from various parts of the academic spectrum. In the first part of the hypothesis the writer expounds the view that art lost its sacred character in the late Middle Ages. Theories of religious art from the ancient Jewish drama and the Greek tragedy to the Renaissance are examined, which illustrate two different kinds of relationship between art and religion, and the way they developed from Jewish art and Greek tragedy to the Byzantine icon and the medieval Cathedral. Patristic sources are used to explore the connection between art and religion. The second part of the hypothesis is that contemporary philosophy and art, having witnessed the death of the author, are now registering the withdrawal of the work of art as an independent object, and a partial reversal of the Renaissance art paradigm (nevertheless nothing as radical as a move toward a 'neo-medieval' paradigm). The withdrawal or 'death' of the work of art and of art as a process, are discussed. The writer argues that contemporary art, popular and classical, is withdrawing as a distinct activity, giving its place to a growing religious awareness or practice. The fusion of the limits of art and life, that postmodernism theorized and practiced, is very consistent with the medieval view of the religious icon as a liturgical and spiritual entity.
'What lies at the end of formal art history, which we are experiencing at the age of postmodernity?' Framing his reflections on sacred art with this provocative question, Andreopoulos offers a stunning response: 'The death of art as we know it, and its reincarnation as a spiritual practice: something that, in different ways, was part of medieval aesthetics.' If postmodernity signals the collapse of linear 'grand narratives' of artistic development, it also marks the rebirth of an artistic sensibility prevalent in the Middle Ages. Medieval art mirrored the inner reality of the sacred, an endeavor that continued without disruption in the iconographic tradition of the Christian East, whose Byzantine Renaissance coincided with the rise of hesychasm (inward prayer). In the West, by contrast, the triumph of the secular, scientific worldview gradually emancipated art from sacred models. A 'humanist' emphasis on the physical body emerged, leading to material depictions of God in such Renaissance masterpieces as the Sistine Chapel. Having outlined these parallel histories, Andreopoulos references postmodern discourse on the 'death' of the author to argue that the 'death of art' is not the end of civilization (or religion, or even art itself), but merely the undoing of the Renaissance. Along with composer John Tavener (one of several contemporary musicians considered in the final chapter), he sees in the re-sacralization of art a hopeful 'return to Paradise...very similar to the ideas of the Neo-Platonists.'
'What lies at the end of formal art history, which we are experiencing at the age of postmodernity?' Framing his reflections on sacred art with this provocative question, Andreopoulos offers a stunning response: 'The death of art as we know it, and its reincarnation as a spiritual practice: something that, in different ways, was part of medieval aesthetics.' If postmodernity signals the collapse of linear 'grand narratives' of artistic development, it also marks the rebirth of an artistic sensibility prevalent in the Middle Ages. Medieval art mirrored the inner reality of the sacred, an endeavor that continued without disruption in the iconographic tradition of the Christian East, whose Byzantine Renaissance coincided with the rise of hesychasm (inward prayer). In the West, by contrast, the triumph of the secular, scientific worldview gradually emancipated art from sacred models. A 'humanist' emphasis on the physical body emerged, leading to material depictions of God in such Renaissance masterpieces as the Sistine Chapel. Having outlined these parallel histories, Andreopoulos references postmodern discourse on the 'death' of the author to argue that the 'death of art' is not the end of civilization (or religion, or even art itself), but merely the undoing of the Renaissance. Along with composer John Tavener (one of several contemporary musicians considered in the final chapter), he sees in the re-sacralization of art a hopeful 'return to Paradise...very similar to the ideas of the Neo-Platonists.'
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