ArtWay

Beauty is not pasted over suffering but grows out of it—like the proverbial shoot from parched ground. Bruce Herman

Books

Books about Christianity and art

Bibliography art history, theology and art, Christianity and art

Barfield, Owen. Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry. London: Faber & Faber, 1957; New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1965. 
Begbie, Jeremy. Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts.  Edinburgh: T. andT. Clark, 1991.
Beutler, Christian. Der Älteste Kruzifixus:der entschlafeneChristus. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer TaschenbuchVerlag, 1991. 
Bigham, Steven. Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images. Rollingsford, NH: Orthodox Research Institute, 2004. 
Boersma, Hans (ed.). Imagination and Interpretation: Christian Perspectives. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005.
Bonaventura. Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of The Fourteenth Century.  Edited and translated by Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Bustard, Ned, ed. It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2000.
Cartlidge, David R. and J. Keith Elliott. Art & the Christian Apocrypha. London & New York: Routledge, 2001.
Chaplin, Adrienne and Hillary Brand. Art and Soul: Signposts for Christian Artists. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998.
Cottin, Jérôme.  La Mystique De L’Art: Art et christianisme de 1900 à  nos jours. Paris: Cerf, 2007.
de Voragine [or Voraigne], Jacobus. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Dawson, John David. Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Dixon, John W., Jr. The Christ of Michelangelo: An Essay on Carnal Spirituality. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.
Dyrness, William A. Rouault: A Vision of Suffering and Salvation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.
Duncan, David Ewing. The Calendar. London: Fourth Estate, 1999.
Edwards, Cliff. Van Gogh and God. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1989.
Elkins, James. On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art. New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2004.
Elliot, J.K. The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Erickson, Kathleen Powers. At Eternity’s Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Froehlich, Karlfried, ed/trans. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
Gasque, Laurel. “Making the Invisible Visible: Russian Icons of the Golden Age,” The Christian Century, June 8 – 15, 1988.
Gasque, Laurel. “Christian Art in Asia, Africa, and Latin America,” Radix 3/2 (Spring 1995).
Gasque, Laurel. "The Christian Stake in the Arts," Crux   XXXV/4 (December 1999), 13-29; also in Evangelical Review of Theology 24/3 (July 2000).
Gasque, Laurel. “The Bible of the Poor: An Example of Medieval Interpretation and Its Relevance Today,” in Imagination and Interpretation: Christian Perspectives, edited by Hans Boersma. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing. 2005.
Gasque, Laurel. “Larger Than Life: Michelangelo Buonarotti, “ in Issue 91:16-21 (Summer 2006) of Christian History and Biography, 2006.
Gasque, Laurel. “Art” in Dictionary of Mission Theology. Leicester: IVP-UK, 2007.
Hamburger, Jeffrey F. Nuns As Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent. Berkeley: University of California Press,1997.
Hamburger, Jeffrey F. and Anne-Marie Bouche (editors) The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Hengelaar-Rookmaaker Marleen (ed.) The Complete Works of Hans R. Rookmaaker, vols. 1- 6, Carlisle, UK: Piquant, 2002 -2003.
Hughes, Robert. Shock of the New: The Life and Death of Modern Art. New York: Knopf, 1981.
Ignatius. [c. 1523].The Spiritual Exercises. Many editions.
John of Damascus.On Divine Images.Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. “How not to read the Bible”, Commonweal, 22, July 16, 1999.
Labriola, Albert C. Smeltz, John W. The Bible of the Poor: A Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C. 9 d.2 (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1990.)
Lewis, C.S..The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,1964.
Mathews, Thomas F. The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion. Toronto: Stoddard, 1999.
McManners, John, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Miles, Margaret R. Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture, Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Minear,Paul S. “J.S. Bach and J.A. Ernesti: A Case Study in Exegetical and Theological Conflict,” in Our Common History as Christians, ed. John Deschner, et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Moynahan, Brian. William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life. London: Abacus, 2003.
Murray, Sister Charles. Rebirth and Afterlife: A Study of the Transmutation of Some Pagan Imagery in Early Christian Funerary Art. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Murray, Sister Charles. “Artistic Idiom and Doctrinal Development,” In The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick. Edited by Rowan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Murray, Peter and Linda Murray. The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1998.
O’Malley, John W. Four Cultures of the West. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.
Ouspensky, Léonide and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons, Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Vindication of Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
Price, David Hotchkiss. Albrecht Dürer's Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Rookmaaker, H. R.The Creative Gift: Essays on Art and the Christian LifeWestchester: Crossway, 1981.
Rookmaaker, Hans. Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. Westchester: Crossway Books, 1994 [1970]. [Also, contained in The Complete Works of Hans Rookmaaker, vol. 5, ed. Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker (Carlisle: Piquant, 2003).]
Rosenblum, Robert. Modern Art and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko. London: Thames and Hudson, 1975.
Sanneh, Lamin. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Saxl, Fritz. A Heritage of Images. London: Penguin, 1970.
Schaeffer, Francis. Art and the Bible. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973.
Schama, Simon. Rembrandt’s Eyes. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Schiller, Gertrud. Iconography of Christian Art. 2 vols. New York: Graphic Society, 1971, 1972.
Schneemelcher, Wilhelm, ed. New Testament Apocrypha (based on Edgar Hennecke’s New Testament Apocrypha). 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, c. 1991-1992.
Seerveld, Calvin. Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves: Alternative Steps in Understanding Art. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998.
Shepherd, Massey H. Jr. “Christology: A Central Problem of Early Christian Theology and Art” in Age of Spirituality edited by Kurt Weitzman. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980.
Steiner, George. Real Presences. London: Faber and Faber, 1989.
Steinmetz, David C. “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis”, Theology Today, 37, 1980.
Theodore the Studite.On the Holy Icons.Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981.
Van Gogh, Vincent. The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. London: Penguin, 1997.
Veith, Gene E. State of the Arts: From Bezalel to Mapplethorpe. Westchester: Crossway Books, 1991.
Verdon, Timothy Gregory, ed. Monasticism and the Arts. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984.
Verdon, Timothy Gregory and John Henderson. Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Imagination in the Quattrocento. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
Visser, Margaret.The Geometry of Love: Time, Mystery and Meaning in an Ordinary Church Toronto: Harper/Flamingo Canada, 2000.
Walker, Keith. Images or Idols?: The Place of Sacred Art in Churches Today. Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1996.
Williams, Rowan, ed.  The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Wessels, Anton. ‘A Kind of Bible’: Vincent Van Gogh as Evangelist. London: SCM, 2000.
 
Recommended Journals
 
ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, 300 Fifth Street NW, New Brighton, MN 55112. The Journal for The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (societyarts.org)
 
Das Münster: Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, Verlag Schnell and Steiner, Leibnizstraße 13D-93055 Regensburg. www.schnell-und-steiner.de/muenster.ahtml 
 
Faith and Form: Journal of the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture, 3220 N Street NW, Suite 164, Washington, DC 20007. www.faithandform.com
 
Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Seattle, WA, Centre for Religious Humanism. Quality articles and reviews particularly on literature and visual arts from a Christian perspective. imagejournal.org/page/journal/
 
Radix, P. 0. Box 4307, Berkeley, CA 94704. http://www.radixmagazine.com
 
 
For more, see:
 
Byron Borger’s 'Selling Books at IAM: and an extended list of books on the arts': 
 
Matthew Milliner’s 'The Unmappable Terrain of Christianity and Art': http://www.millinerd.com/2011/07/unmappable-terrain-of-christianity-and.html
 
CIVA Recommends. CIVA Recommends is a bibliography that features books and articles related to art and faith. Many of these entries are annotated and all are arranged in alpha-order according to the author’s last name. https://civa.org/resources/civa-recommends/