Religion and the Arts

Art is often viewed as an expression of human imagination and creativity. Religious elements play a significant part in artwork as well as architecture. This cultivated constructive art endeavour combines knowledge, aesthetics, and emotion. This paper explores artistic expression in the context of Christian art.
Christian art comes in a variety of forms, such as paintings, sculptures, and architecture, and it provides a significant aspect of the expression of faith, goodness, and beauty. There have been many Catholic and Christian churches established in Hong Kong, China, over the years. The connection to creative features can be recognised through the visualisation of the artistry and architecture.
Religious paintings can be aesthetically pleasing and evoke a sense of beauty and spirituality. Church architecture can be visually captivating, and there is a wide variety of architectural styles and approaches involving creative design elements. The use of symbolism and iconography adds layers of meaning and depth to the artwork, enhancing its aesthetic appeal.
The study of art expression and its aesthetic component is one way to understand the emotional and spiritual aspects of art. This paper investigates the relationship and inspiration of Christian artwork through aesthetic perspectives. It aims to understand how becoming a believer changes the perception of art. It will study the case of an exhibition of Christian artwork as well as examples of church architecture in Hong Kong, China, in order to have a better understanding of people’s artistic viewpoints before and after they become believers.

When imbued with the presence of the divine, evoking rapture or awe, something is said to be "numinous" The word often applies to works of nature: the setting sun, the all-enveloping sky, or the light filtering through the trees; or a creation of mankind: a piece of music, a work of architecture, or a painting But how is a work of art "numinous"? Does the work of art represent something that evokes the numinous, or does it create the experience of the "numinous" through formal means? Does it comment on the numinous or speak to it in some other way? For the most part "numinous" is applied to works of art that represent natural objects or scenes considered "numinous", or that are thought to evoke the numinous through form alone, often abstract form Why does the word "numinous" rarely if ever come to mind before a hard-hitting work of social justice art depicting impoverished denizens of the bowery or precarious hovels in the dust bowl, ruined homes whose residents have fled, or before works of conceptual art that communicate these and other social ills? This chapter considers the history of the concept "numinous" from its initial application to art early in the twentieth century, through its later appearance in mid-century American art theoretical discussions, to the changing implications of ideas surrounding the term as Jewish thinkers take them up in the mid to late twentieth century Primarily

In Das Heilige, Rudolf Otto discusses not only conceptual, but artistic parallels to the idea of the "numinous". The artistic styles and periods that he mentions are those admired by European literati and intellectuals of his time. They include the spare Chinese landscapes "of emptiness", made in the classical period of the Tang and Sung dynasties, as well as the gothic art that inspired the movement towards abstraction in the early twentieth century. Related ideas continue to pervade the discourse of champions of abstract art well into the twentieth century, as in in Michael Fried's exegesis of "presentness", in his essay "Art and Objecthood". Seemingly counterintuitively, ideas associated with the numinous also infiltrate discourses of the art of social justice. Some Jewish thinkers who referenced or absorbed Otto's ideas, translated them into relational notions or ethical ideas of responsibility. When these ideas seep into the conte...

This exchange brings together an art historian and a contemporary artist in order to foreground the constitutive characteristic of artistic activism in South Asia, i.e. a strong intermeshing between theory (both aesthetic and political) and practice (both social and artistic). Yashadatta Alone is an established art historian, who has taught, formulated and disseminated critical concepts such as what he refers to as "Brahmanical Modernity," "Ambedkarian Aesthetics," and "aesthetics of inhibition." Anupam Roy is a contemporary artist whose production has positioned him as a voice of people's movements. This role provides an interesting extension to the complexity and diversity of possible positions that are located at the interface between thought and action, vis-à-vis artistic activism including its ideological formulations. This conversation began with an online meeting, which provided a framework within which it was possible to address the main concerns of these two protagonists with regard to critical thought and action in its artistic expressions. From this exchange emerged questions that each of the two authors addressed to the other, mainly relating to interrogations that challenge dominant narratives that prevail in the discourse of modernity, and the very political conditions of the artist's production in the contemporary world. From the accurate question of Ambedkarian aesthetics (and its critical frameworks) that emerged as an ideological opposition to Brahmanical modernity in India, to considerations around the historical narrative that prevails in modern Indian art, and the becoming of modern and contemporary art practices, the conversation points to how alternative practices have become a possibility or, more, a necessity for many actors involved in thinking and making political art or artistic activism today.

Time remains one of the greatest enigmas in philosophy and science, from the pre-Socratics to contemporary cosmology. In relativity, it emerges as a mere geometric dimension, dissolved in a four-dimensional block where past, present, and future coexist without change. In thermodynamics, it acquires an irreversible arrow, linked to the growth of entropy. In quantum mechanics, it manifests discontinuously, subject to measurement collapses and the Zeno Effect. Philosophy, in turn, has opposed such reductions: for Henri Bergson, time is creative duration, an indivisible continuity that sustains memory and novelty. For Heraclitus, it is a conflicting becoming, the dynamic flow of a reality in constant transformation. For Gaston Bachelard, it is a discontinuous instant, a temporal atom that breaks continuity and inaugurates the new. Kosmos Theory (KTS) proposes a holographic synthesis of these perspectives. Time is not just a geometric line or a mere discontinuous atom, but an emergent topological structure from the coupling of mirror universes (matter and antimatter), sustained by Cosmological Consciousness. In this model, the Unitary Phenomenal Self (EFU) embodies a temporal ontology, unifying chrónos (time as a physical idea and a historical phenomenon), kairós (opportune and decisive time), the Bachelardian instant (discontinuous actuality), and aión (the atemporal field of synthesis). Against the determinism of the block universe, which denies flow and creation, KTS affirms the rebirth of time. It is not its end but its permanent metamorphosis as lived experience, a creative process, and a quantum actualization of reality. In this context, science and philosophy converge, showing that time is more than a mathematical variable: it is the very ontological pulse of being, the breath in which consciousness and the cosmos reflect each other.

Respected dignitaries, esteemed scholars, and dear friends, Good afternoon! It is an honor to address you all at this One-day National Seminar, where we gather to celebrate and reflect upon the profound significance of Pali, one of India's classical languages, and its inseparable connection to the timeless legacy and heritage of Bhagawan Buddha.

etwccn the versions of "Cathedral" that Atlantic Monthly published in 1981 and that Knopf published in Cathedral in 1983 (the same version that appears in the Vintage 1984 release), Raymond Carver made more than two hundred revisions.' These amendments range from simple hyphenation -say from "social service department" (1981, 23) to "socialservice department" (1984, 210) -to entire new sentences and deletions of

In this study, we examine the two terms shrine and altar in their denotative meaning and in their contradictive nature. A conceptual clarification is given to establish the view we intend to pass across to our numerous readers. A literature review on similar subjects were used to clarify the justification of the research topic and to point out that Christian evangelisms were intimately part of those factors that led to the shrinking shrines and the expanding altars in our global society today as most people especially our youth consider it a mark of civilization and enlightenment when they embrace Christianity at the expense of the traditional religions. To make the research a holistic set up, we gave some factors responsible for shrinking shrines and expanding altars in our communities and in the world at large. To protect and preserve our shrinking shrines, we conclude that the excesses of our expanding altars should be checked by those in authorities at all levels.

When Jesus tells Pilate “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), he may be reassuring Pilate that Jesus and his followers pose no political threat. In our time, however, the secular idea of “alternate facts” has become something of a new religion and affects both our politics and our academic study. The difficult questions of what constitutes facts or credible critical interpretation of literary facts is particularly vexed when there is a question of citation. This article does not deal with questionable abbreviations of citation (such as “The Lord is merciful and compassionate” Exod. 34:6 without the deflected punishment clauses) or expanded citation (such as “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies’ ” [Matt. 5:43]). It concerns rather some instances where a verse may or may not be a citation and where extra-biblical ideology can interfere with the interpretation of what is being quoted, if it is being quoted. “The poor you have always with you” (Ma...

The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art offers a critical guide for rereading and rethinking religion in the histories of modern and contemporary art.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a marked increase in attention to religion and spirituality in contemporary art among artists and scholars alike, but the resulting scholarship is underdeveloped, lacking a sustained discourse that holds up as both scholarship of art and as scholarship of religion. The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art is both a critical study of this situation and an adjustment to it, offering a much-needed field guide to the current discourse of contemporary art and religion. By connecting the work of leading art historians, theologians, philosophers, and sociologists, Anderson opens new lines of inquiry and invites deeper dialogue about the theological grammars, histories, and concepts at play in modern and contemporary art.

Among the vast array of priceless treasures in the collection of Jerusalem's Armenian Patriarchate is a votive portrait of a local Jerusalem saint, the priest Hanna, a native son of Jerusalem's Armenian community. The existence of the portrait is all but unknown, despite the fact that its subject has inspired generations of Jerusalem monks to dedicate their lives to the service of the Sts. James. As vicar to Jerusalem's Patriarch Grigor IV Shirvants'i (Shght'ayakir) Hanna was instrumental in reviving the fortunes of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, which, in the early eighteenth century, had suffered a near-total eclipse. Although Hanna died before the age of forty, the many activities of his short career included such major achievements as the renovation of the Armenian sections of the Holy Sepulchre Church and the transformation of the Patriarchate compound into a fully enclosed and self-sufficient enclave.

This article critically examines the origin, propagation, and religio-historical implications of the widely circulated but erroneous claim that Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) possessed one of the highest IQs in recorded history. Tracing the legend's roots to a misattribution in the Guinness Book of World Records (1974-1978), the study evaluates how this inflated figure was mistakenly linked to Catharine Cox's 1926 historiometric study, The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses, in which Swedenborg's corrected IQ estimates were 145 and 165-middle of the pack. The essay explores how otherwise reputable Swedenborgian and secular sources-including The New Philosophy, New Church Life, A Continuing Vision, and The New York Times-have perpetuated this myth over the past several decades. The analysis is structured into three chronological sections (pre-1950, 1951-2000, 2001-present) and argues that the emphasis on Swedenborg's intellect risks overshadowing his self-proclaimed identity as a humble servant of the Lord. The article concludes with a call to correct the narrative within Swedenborgian institutions and uphold the integrity of one of the most successful New Religious Movement's in history by resisting the tendency to idolize the founder through exaggerated intellectual veneration.

During the Baroque period, artists worked in a style—encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church and the Council of Trent—that revealed the divine in natural forms and made religious experiences more accessible. Cosmas Damian Asam, painter and architect, and his brother Egid (Aegid) Quirin Asam, sculptor and stuccatore, were the principal exponents of eighteenth-century, southern-German religious decoration and architecture in the grand manner, the Gesamtkunstwerk. Cosmas Damian's visionary and ecstatic art utilized light, both physical and illusionistic, together with images of meteorological and astronomical phenomena, such as solar and lunar eclipses. This paper focuses on his representations of eclipses and demonstrates how Asam was galvanized by their visual, as well as metaphorical, power and that he studied a number of them. He subsequently applied his observations in a series of paintings for the Benedictine order that become increasingly astronomically accurate and spiritua...

The objective of this article is the understand the character of Zeus in Greek mythology. He was the King of the Olympian Gods, and was thunder and the law personified. Zeus is widely known in mythology for numerous romantic and often forceful encounters with mortals and immortals, which reflect complex themes in ancient Greek storytelling. Zeus was also involved in such wars as the Titanomachy and the Gigantomachy. Emotional strife, love emotions, and personal traits go a long way in elucidating his character, and this paper turns to Homer's epics, Hesiod's writings, as well as religious and artistic directions for a thorough understanding of Zeus' persona. The ultimate goal is to make clear the impact of Zeus' presence in the realms of both fable and history as seen by the writer's interaction with the different facets of God over the years.

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Th is piece provides an account of the fertile exchanges that took place among Arab-Muslim and Hindu populations, as well as Jews, Parsis, and Christians, since the early decades of the first millennium CE and during the medieval period of Muslim rule in India. Tracing the remarkable story of inter-religious experiments in this vital area of the globe, and the intense socio-political, intellectual, and cultural intercourse between Hindus and Muslims that pervaded all sectors of existence, the author makes a strong case against zealous historical interpretations that portray Islam and Hinduism as warring factions and ideologies. Of particular interest in this rich cross-fertilization process is the creative leadership of figures like Mughal Emperor Akbar, Sultan Nasir Shah, Shikism's Guru Nanak, and poets such as Kabir Das.

This thesis reconstructs the legendary Book of Raziel—a divine text said to contain the foundational secrets of creation, passed from the angel Raziel to Adam. Integrating mystical sources including Ruah YHWH in Ezekiel, Sefer ha-Malbush, and The Book of Noah, this modern synthesis weaves together ancient traditions, sacred geometry, and esoteric knowledge. It proposes that the book encoded not only words but frequencies, light, and divine architecture—revealing its role in the Ark of the Covenant, Enochian visions, and Solomon’s magical dominion. This work revives the lost knowledge with reverence and modern gnosis, illuminating a cosmic inheritance once whispered in sapphire and gold.

Researchers previously demonstrated that a roughness index called the road impact factor (RIF) is directly proportional to the international roughness index (IRI) when measured under identical conditions. A RIF-transform converts inertial signals from connected vehicle accelerometers and speed sensors to produce RIF-indices in realtime. This research examines the relative sensitivities of the RIF and the IRI to variations in dominant profile wavelengths. The findings are that both indices characterize roughness from spatial wavelengths up to 2 meters with equal sensitivity. However, the RIF transform maintains its sensitivity when characterizing roughness from wavelengths beyond that. The case studies used a certified inertial profiler to collect both RIF and IRI data simultaneously from five different pavement surface types. The RIF/IRI proportionality factors distributed normally among the profiles tested. This result affirms that the RIF and IRI generally agrees. However, differences in the dominant profile wavelength among pavements will produce some spread in the degree of roughness that the indices express.

In this essay, I point out four European engravings that could have served as models for the Brazilian sculptor Aleijadinho (the Little Cripple) in conceiving the two frontal bas-reliefs of the pulpits in the Church of São Francisco de Assis in Ouro Preto.

This paper addresses tensions existing between confessional approaches (insider discourses assuming the truth of a tradition) and social scientific approaches (discourses engaged in classification, comparison, and historical and social contextualization of teachers and traditions). The academic study of G. I. Gurdjieff and the Work is a recent subfield at the crossroads of religious studies, Western esotericism, and more secular philosophical and psychological tendencies. Studies of religious/spiritual and occult/esoteric phenomena were traditionally undertaken by members of the particular religion or esoteric school in question, and the value of outsider-oriented “scientific” research on such topics and groups has often been questioned.

A growing number of Indonesian young people, both on campuses and social media, are identifying as agnostics. However, many do so without fully understanding what agnosticism means, often seeing it as an anti-mainstream alternative to atheism. This trend presents a challenge for educators, particularly in Christian schools and universities, who must engage with these students effectively. In the Indonesian context, this issue is further complicated by Pancasila, which upholds belief in God as national ideology. This essay uses recent literature to introduce the basic tenets of agnosticism, identify types of agnosticism, and offer educators practical strategiesfrom theology, philosophy, and psychology -to foster deeper understanding of this issue in schools.

The phrase in the title, borrowed from Paul (1 Corinthians 13:12), though used in a twisted form, suggests interest of new media in faith-based art, and leads to the question of whether and how such applications work in that specific context; also, if they do, then how they contribute to the spiritual and religious experience. Our media world is "the shelter where the vast majority of those of us who live in the West dwell and from which we draw the material out of which we make sense of our lives," Cobb (2005) claims. Accordingly, as part of our world, the rise of digital art has also become common in faith-based (spiritual and religious) art. This phenomenon has been addressed in international theory, including studies of the post-secular age and (re)enchantment, as well as in theory combined with curatorial practice (e.g., Groys and Weibel 2011). The paper pays special attention to the practices of Central European artists.

" I had loved learning once. But somewhere along the way, academia had turned into a competition, a performance, an endless loop of proving I was worthy. Maybe I didn’t have to chase that anymore. Maybe learning could just be learning again. "

Franny and Zooey is one of my favorite books because I relate to the protagonist, Franny and admire her strength to still try despite her mind telling her otherwise. I decided to ask ChatGPT:Open AI to write another rendition of the book, but an extension-expanding on her recovery while writing in the same style as JD. Saligner. Here's what came of it.

The paper discusses the more profound significance of Sri Aurobindo in the Indian Renaissance literary movement. Evolving in the context of colonial India towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the Indian Renaissance was a profound cultural and intellectual revival seeking to reclaim India's spiritual and cultural identity. One of the most important figures of this movement, Sri Aurobindo, employed his masterful writing to stir a national renaissance. This research draws upon his varied corpus of poetry and essays. It shows that his writing often operated beyond the traditional understanding of literature as 'art for art's sake' and functioned as a political and spiritual change vehicle. This study uses a critical examination of some of Aurobindo's significant writingslike Savitri, The Life Divine, and Essays on the Gitato examine spiritual evolution, nationalism, and resurgence in culture. It also utilises critical interpretations and secondary sources to present Aurobindo as a pivotal figure in the larger context of the Indian Renaissance. These results suggest that blending Eastern spirituality with Western literary methods created a distinctive cultural combination, influencing generations of Indian philosophers and authors who came after Aurobindo. His focus on self-discovery and pride in Indian heritage was pivotal in redefining India's cultural face redefining. The paper concluded that His literary legacy in Sri Aurobindo remains profoundly related, voicing out some poignant truths about contemporary India and the never-halted spiritual and cultural quest for renewal. According to this research, he remains one of the dominant forces in Indian literature and represents the critical builder of India's intellectual and cultural revival.

Edward Berger's Conclave is not just a film of spaces, but of bodies. The construction of the sequences leading up to the election of the new pope depicts the cardinals in their bodily and proxemic awareness of being icons with symbolic value, as well as media that connect the Vatican, the outside world and divinity. In this way the film shows the process of deconstruction of the resistance of a plurality of ecclesial bodies defending themselves against external attacks, which subsume themselves into a unity that will be the key to the survival of the Church of the future.

This article provides a genealogy of the architectural figuration of human cognition from the ancient world to Renaissance Europe and, finally, to the American Renaissance where it came to possess a striking cultural and literary potency. The first section pursues the twofold task of elucidating this archetypal trope for consciousness, both its ancient moorings and its eventual transmission into Europe. The second section shows that three of the most prominent writers of the American Renaissance-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne-engaged this mystically inspired architectonic symbolism, employing far older techno-cultural suppositions about interior space. I thereby offer an account of the intellectual and spiritual heritage upon which Romantic writers in the United States drew to articulate cognitive interiority. These Romantics did more than value creativity in contradistinction to Enlightenment rationalism; they were acknowledging themselves as recipients of the ancient belief in cosmogenesis as self-transformation.

R eading Andre Dubus's novella "Adultery" in tandem with the essay "On Charon's Wharf" provides a good opportunity to investigate the sort of rich cross-fertilization that exists between Dubus's ction and non-ction, a cross-fertilization that I think is crucial to the current and, I hope, sustained growth of his reputation as a major voice in American letters. Asked in a 1987 interview to name ctions of his own with which he was "most satis ed," Dubus pointed to "Adultery." "I don't know if it's the best," he said, but it took enormous pains: "it threw me off the saddle so many times and hurt me, and I kept giving up." By the end it took "four hundred typed pages, seven drafts, seventeen months of work spread over maybe two or three years. And I tried to put into there everything I knew about God, death, and women, and marriage" (Kennedy 116). "On Charon's Wharf," which was published the same year as "Adultery," is obviously an offshoot of Dubus's struggle to complete the novella. Ideas, images, situations, and even phrasings from "Adultery" appear in the essay. These provide fascinating glimpses into the workings of Dubus's imagination at what he indicates in several interviews was a key moment of deepening and development in his career. In these works of the mid 1970s, Dubus begins to sound in ever more daring, more explicitly Christian, and more artistically assured ways one of the most profound, complex, and characteristically "Dubusian" strains in his later stories-the close, paradoxical alliance between the possibility for joy and a fully developed sense of the tragic dimension of love or, in short, the "mysteries of love and mortality" (Broken Vessels 78). Both works were published in 1977. "On Charon's Wharf" appeared in Boston Magazine; "Adultery" was published rst in Sewanee Review (Volume 85, Winter 1977) and then as the title story in Dubus's second collection of short ction, Adultery and Other Choices (1977). In at least two interviews, Dubus provides hints of the genesis of both works, mentioning

This paper deals with the psychological trauma caused by death and how Hindu culture responds to that trauma. Every culture has a grieving mechanism to ease the pain and suffering brought on by death. In this paper, the author presents his personal experience with death of his parents and his best friend's families who died of COVID-19. To cope with the loss that death involves, all cultures have some kind of death ceremonies-some are more elaborate than others. Hindu death ceremonies are rooted in texts that guide the grieving one through various steps to keep the bereaved family members preoccupied with ritualistic activities that give them no time to think about the loss. The preta karma is one of the Hindu samskāras related to death that this paper goes into detail to argue that it is designed to ease the bereavement process, a coping mechanism invented before Western psychotherapy came into practice in the nineteenth century.

The publication of Peter W. Williams's Religion, Art, and Money brings a long, fruitful career full circle. Ever since his 1970 dissertation at Yale University, which explored Unitarians' cultural encounter with Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century, Williams has built a reputation as an omnivorous historian of religion and religious art in America.

La enseñanza actual de la asignatura de Español ha ido desplazando paulatinamente en los últimos años el estudio de la literatura. Esta orientación se manifiesta, por un lado, en la eliminación de los contenidos de literatura de los programas oficiales y, por otro, en un determinado enfoque del estudio de las obras literarias propuestas. El contacto con éstas se ha sustituido con descripciones atomistas del texto, descontextualizaciones, interpretaciones que privilegian la figura del autor, las corrientes o los movimientos literarios en sí mismos. Desde nuestra perspectiva, en cambio, el objeto de estudio de la literatura no debe ser el escritor, ni la teoría literaria ni los métodos y las técnicas de análisis, pese a la indiscutible importancia que poseen todos estos aspectos. Movidas por la convicción de que el objeto de estudio de la literatura en secundaria debe ser el texto literario, hemos elaborado una unidad didáctica que desarrolla, a propósito de la novela Pedro Páramo, una propuesta distinta para trabajar, profesor y estudiante, un texto narrativo en secundaria. Esta unidad didáctica consta de un cuaderno de trabajo para el profesor y una guía de análisis para el estudiante. Esta última parte ofrece una serie de ejercicios para que él observe, analice e interprete el texto. Su meta, por lo tanto, es suscitar problemas sobre éste. Además, ordena la observación de los problemas de acuerdo con algunas categorías básicas de análisis y trata de orientar el análisis integrando la descripción del texto con su interpretación. En el cuaderno del profesor, además de la guía de análisis y las orientaciones generales para utilizarla, se incluyen sugerencias de actividades de contextualización, comprensión y motivación, la síntesis del análisis total de la novela, una referencia suscinta a algunas categorías metodológicas empleadas y una bibliografía selectiva y ordenada. La unidad didáctica cumple con dos objetivos: por un lado contribuir a la comprensión de este texto; por otro, ofrecer un procedimiento de análisis que se puede utilizar para estudiar otras obras narrativas. A continuación ofrecemos, para la discusión de este congreso, un resumen de algunas de las actividades propuestas en esa unidad, tanto en el cuaderno de trabajo del profesor como en la guía del estudiante, con la esperanza de que se convierta en un aporte útil para mejorar la enseñanza de la literatura en el país.

John Ruskin gave Gerard Manley Hopkins an aesthetic vocabulary imbued with Christian concepts of obedience, sacrifice, truth, and Divine Beauty. Even secular art is never morally neutral; Christian art has additional moral weight in the artist’s reverence for God’s self-revelation in creation. Hopkins’s Scotism confirmed his conviction that an artist’s work must be a responsible personal proclamation of truth about creation. Such moral responsibility discourages easy sentimentality but demands reverence for beauty. The depth of Hopkins’s interaction with etymology, syntax, and sound springs from Ruskinian sacrificial expenditure of workmanship and reverence for what Ruskin called “truth” to materials. “Ashboughs,” a cheerful, subtly Marian curtal sonnet, shows Hopkins’s Ruskinian principles at work late in his life, especially in the poet’s attention to diction, syntax, and divine truth revealed in concrete, worldly beauty.

The most basic definition of ritual is the movement of (human) bodies in space, though issues of intention, structure, repetition, and meaning arise when attempting to craft a framework via which to analyse examples of rituals, religious and non-religious (Grimes 1992). Dance, too, involves moving bodies, though the form may be distinguished from ritual by being viewed primarily as of aesthetic, rather than spiritual significance (Hanna 1988). Other considerations include the role of tradition and innovation, of the individual and the collective, and of the values attached to the activity in question (Schechner 1987). Arguably, esoteric dance forms cross the boundary between aesthetic activity and ritual transformation, partaking in defined choreography yet directed to spiritual transformation rather than aesthetic experience (Weig 2018). This chapter examines two forms of esoteric dance from the early twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner’s Eurythmy and George Ivanovich Gurdjieff’s Movements. The relationship of these body-based disciplines to secular dance forms, ritual activities, and transformative religio-spiritual and esoteric practices (prayer, contemplation) is examined and historically situated, and cosmological and anthropological parallels between the two are identified (Cusack 2023).

In the 1980s, the era-de1ning desires for material gain replaced goals of spiritual evolution among New Age enthusiasts. Esoteric thinkers like Blavatsky, Steiner, and Gurdjieff were rediscovered and widely disseminated, but their teachings were divorced from their articulated programs of human transformation.

En aquest article es tracta sobre la faceta d'Apel·les Mestres com a col·leccionista, la menys coneguda i estudiada fins ara, i la dispersió de la seva col·lecció a partir de la seva mort el 1936, i que va tenir lloc entre els anys quaranta i noranta del segle passat.

The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga analyzes the contributions of the Mother (née Mirra Alfassa, 1878-1973) to the Integral Yoga that she and Sri Aurobindo (né Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950) co-created for his ashram. Scholars have ignored Mirra for Aurobindo, which prevents a full understanding of their spiritual practice. Scholars have also avoided examining work Aurobindo produced after they began their partnership in 1920 until his death in 1950, and privileged the written output in his journal Arya from 1914 to 1921. In this initial fertile period, he put forth his innovative teaching about what he called the “Supermind,” an emergent human faculty that he said would manifest a new humanity and a new earth through Mirra’s body. Mirra claimed that after his death in 1956 this manifestation happened as he foretold. Mirra’s work in the ashram from his death until hers in 1973 reveals important ways that she both fulfilled and changed Aurobindo’s initial vision. These developments are chiefly based on her experiences of mental dissolution while her body gained a new supramental form and consciousness.

The thesis titled "V. M. Vasnetsov's Paintings in the St. Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev" by Olga Volgshtein, completed at Saratov State University in 2014, is devoted to a brilliant artist of the Russian Empire whose life and work exemplify the European nation-building phenomenon during the mid- and late 19th century. Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, through his religious murals in the St. Vladimir Cathedral, played an axial role in shaping a national artistic identity in the contemporary Russian Empire. His work masterfully fused national-patriotic ideals with Byzantine and Western European influences, positioning him at the intersection of realism, romanticism and modernism, making him one of the first artists to work in the Russian Revival style. Vasnetsov's artistic vision captured not only the spiritual essence of Russian Orthodoxy but also mirrored the broader socio-political currents of Europe, as nations sought to forge cultural and historical identities. The thesis consists of an introduction, three main chapters, and a conclusion: Chapter 1 provides an in-depth examination of the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev as a Neo-Byzantine architectural masterpiece, exploring the historical context of Russian architectural trends and the intricate process of constructing and decorating the cathedral. Russian Revival architecture, including the Neo-Byzantine style, emerged amidst a growing interest in national architectural traditions, characteristic of 19th-century Europe, and represented an interpretation and stylization of the architectural heritage of the Russian Empire. Chapter 2 delves into the life and career of V. M. Vasnetsov, focusing on his role in Russian artistic circles and his portrayal of Christ, which reflects the broader search for religious imagery in 19th-century Russian art. Chapter 3 offers a detailed analysis of Vasnetsov’s religious paintings as a unique artistic phenomenon of Folk Art Revival, highlighting the themes, stylistic techniques, and the contemporary reception of his murals in the St. Vladimir Cathedral. The conclusion summarizes Vasnetsov's profound impact on Russian religious painting, illustrating how his work stands as a creative synthesis of Russian Epos and Byzantine traditions, grounded in the Western artistic school. The research, supported by iconographic and archival analysis, is richly illustrated with photos, including Vasnetsov's sketches displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery. This thesis celebrates Vasnetsov as a pivotal figure in the cultural revival of the Russian Empire, whose contributions to religious and national art epitomize the pan-European movement toward nation-building in the 19th century.

The most basic definition of ritual is the movement of (human) bodies in space, though issues of intention, structure, repetition, and meaning arise when attempting to craft a framework via which to analyse examples of rituals, religious and non-religious (Grimes 1992). Dance, too, involves moving bodies, though the form may be distinguished from ritual by being viewed primarily as of aesthetic, rather than spiritual significance (Hanna 1988). Other considerations include the role of tradition and innovation, of the individual and the collective, and of the values attached to the activity in question (Schechner 1987). Arguably, esoteric dance forms cross the boundary between aesthetic activity and ritual transformation, partaking in defined choreography yet directed to spiritual transformation rather than aesthetic experience (Weig 2018). This presentation examines two forms of esoteric dance from the early twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner’s Eurythmy and George Ivanovich Gurdjieff’s Movements. The relationship of these body-based disciplines to secular dance forms, ritual activities, and transformative religio-spiritual and esoteric practices (prayer, contemplation) is examined and cosmological and anthropological parallels between the two are identified (Cusack 2023).

Purpose of this research was to detect influence of climatic change on pine radial increment in stand in the Left-bank Forest-steppe of Ukraine as example 100-years-old stand at State Enterprise 'Kharkiv forest scientific research station'. Methods. Dendrochronological. Method of correlation function and multiple regressions (response function) were used to analyze the influence of climatic factors on tree radial increment. For this purpose computer program RESPO was used. Results. Tree ring series were built and were used for correlation analysis between climatic factors and pine radial increment for two periods:

In the 1990s there was a growing and renewed interest on the practice of clothing images of saints after, as Richard Trexler put it, the negligence demonstrated towards it by art historians until then. In 2018, following the publication of new and unprejudiced studies about it, the presence of two dresses belonging to statues of the Virgin Mary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” testified to the impact clothed images had on fashion creators and, according to David Morgan, the Church’s ritual and performative life. While focusing on the miraculous image of Nossa Senhora da Lapa from Quintela, Portugal, this article aims to acknowledge the many roles played by its clothes and jewels, assessing the complexity of this phenomenon and aiming for a wider understanding of how the faithful engaged with devotional sculpture.