This week, a workshop and ongoing exhibition — described as “a contemporary pilgrimage” — examine physical spaces with interfaith meanings.
art and religion
The Vivid Violence and Divine Healing of Ex-Voto Paintings
The ex-voto painting is a Catholic folk art tradition depicting individual misfortunes that were mollified by divine intervention.
Captivating Objects from the Met’s Sprawling Exhibition on Medieval Jerusalem
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York takes an on-the-ground view of life, war, and devotion in Jerusalem during the medieval era.
The Gift of Simplicity in America’s Love Affair with the Shakers
The Metropolitan Museum of Art examines the emergence of 19th-century Shaker minimalism, and its influence on American Modernism.
The First Known Depiction of a Witch on a Broomstick
In the 15th century, the image of the witch flying on a broomstick first appeared, its meaning laden with sexual and spiritual depravity.
How Anamorphic Paintings Represented the Miracles of the Saints
Which saint you see in this 17th-century painting depends on where you stand.
Sacred Bones and the Catacomb Saint of Manhattan
Catholic churches in Europe host as many bones as a graveyard, with bits of saints and intact incorrupt bodies encased in glass and displayed on ornate altars.
Rubin Museum Opens Expanded Buddhist Shrine Room
Flickering light and faint sounds of chanting accompany the Rubin Museum of Art’s expanded Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, where visitors to the Chelsea museum can pause in a space of contemplation.
Belief, Reason, and the Origins of the World in a Striking Series of 19th-Century Illustrations
Galileo and other troublemakers aside, science and religion didn’t have such a complete falling out until the 19th century.
Rare Windows Into the Past: Canterbury Stained Glass Arrives at the Cloisters
Six of the medieval stained-glass windows that usually soar some 60 feet up in England’s Canterbury Cathedral are on their first journey outside of their ecclesiastical home, brought down to a more intimate level in an exhibition at the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan.
Satanist Group Proposes 19th C Horned-Goat Monument for Oklahoma Capitol
The Satanic Temple of New York unveiled on Monday designs for a Satanic monument on the steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol. The edifice, featuring plenty of occult symbolism and smiling children, is proposed for the site adjacent to the capitol’s controversial Ten Commandments statue.
One Nation Under Satan: Religious Sculpture on State Property Rankles in Oklahoma
One only has to stumble over the last lines of the Pledge of Allegiance or look at the back of a dollar bill to see how monotheistic religion is cemented in the United States.