Catholic Art

All visual works produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the teachings of the Catholic Church:

  • sculpture
  • mosaics
  • metalwork
  • embroidery
  • architecture
  • painted frescoes on the walls of catacombs and meeting houses
  • carved statuary of Jesus, Mary, and other biblical figures

Early Christian symbols

  • the dove
  • the fish
  • the lamb
  • the cross
  • symbolic representation of the Four Evangelists as beasts
  •  the Good Shepherd
  • the use of the halo as a symbol of sanctity

 

The Baptism of Christ

  • Ivory carvings, often for book covers
  • Copies of the scriptures or liturgical books illustrated on vellum and adorned with precious metals were produced in abbeys and nunneries across Western Europe
  •  the Stockholm Codex Aureus (“Gold Book”) might be written in gold leaf on purple vellum, in imitation of Roman and Byzantine Imperial manuscripts

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael transformed Catholic art more fundamentally. Girolamo da Treviso, Albrecht Dürer,  Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Altdorfer, Carracci and Caravaggio, Bernini, Diego Velázquez, Francisco Pacheco, Gianbattista Tiepolo, Gavin Hamilton, Augustus Pugin in England and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc,… Modern Catholic artists include Brian Whelan and Efren Ordonez and Ade Bethune and Imogen Stuart and Georges Rouault.

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Fine Art America SHOP

Jen Norton STUDIO

Painting, Sculpture and Metalcraft in Sacred Arts in Firenze

Sacred Arts in Canada