Art and the spiritual

Abstract

How are we to understand the spiritual significance of art given our pneumatologically infused culture? Surely, the expression of the human spirit through art seems to be as old as humankind itself. The complex drawings in Europe’s caves suggest a fascination with creating beauty that goes back to our prehistory.1 But as the West enters ever more fully into what some have labeled a “neo-Romantic” period in its culture, art has taken on an enhanced meaning spiritually. A poll by George Barna at the turn of the millennium not only revealed that 20 percent of Americans turn to “media, arts and culture” as their primary means of spiritual experience and expression. It also suggests that if the trends continue, by 2025, the same number of Americans will look to the arts as they look to the church for their spiritual formation, a revolution surely in how faith has traditionally been encouraged. 2 But how, or whether, such spiritual/spirited/inspired experiences of art are spiritual is another matter. Is such spirituality simply a human longing, a projection, or can it also be the occasion for an encounter with Transcendence, a numinous experience that comes from beyond us?.