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Tutoring the Religious Imagination: Art and Theology as Pedagogues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
This essay presents a psychological approach to understanding the creative functioning of imagination in art and religion. This approach drawn from psychoanalytic object relations theory further illuminates how the classics of art and theology engage the imagination and how distortions of the products of the creative imagination occur. Discussion of a particular innovative theme found in an artwork and related theological reflection in early Christianity exemplifies how both art and theology guide the religious imagination. Finally, various influences on the formation of personal God-imagery are assessed in the light of a case illustration, and the ongoing need for art and theology as tutors to the religious imagination is underscored.
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References
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41 Sermo 22, SC 22, 84-86.
42 Sermon 27, PNPF, 2nd series, 12 (1891), 140.
43 A study of artistic depictions of the crucifixion especially in the medieval period would also show art operating as a theological pedagogue but in a more sustained and varied manner. See Grillmeier, Aloys, Der Logos am Kreuz (München: Max Hueber, 1956);Google ScholarGrondijs, L. H., “La mort du Christ et le rit du Zéon (réponse a la critique de Grillmeier S.J.),” Autour de l'Iconographie Byzantine du Crucifié Mort sur la Croix (Leiden: Brill, 1960);Google ScholarMartin, John R., “The Dead Christ on the Cross in Byzantine Art” in Weitsmann, Kurt, ed., Late Classical and Medieval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955), 189–96;Google ScholarPocknee, Cyril E., Cross and Crucifix in Christian Worship and Devotion (London: Mowbray, 1962);Google ScholarRahner, Hugo, “Patristisch-ikonographische Probleme der Darstellung des Gekreuzigten,” Scholastik 32 (1957), 410–16;Google Scholar and Thoby, Paul, Le Crucifix des Origènes au Concile de Trente (Nantes: Bellanger, 1959).Google Scholar
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47 Ibid., p. 7.
48 Ibid., p. 226.
49 Ibid., p. 46.
50 See Ann, and Ulanov, Barry, Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), pp. 27–33;Google Scholar and Meissner, p. 182.
51 Rizzuto, p. 172.
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