REFLEXTION OF RELIGIOUS THEMES IN MODERN ART ON SELECTED EXAMPLES
/REFLEXIA NÁBOŽENSKÝCH TÉM V MODERNOM VÝTVARNOM UMENÍ NA VYBRANÝCH PRÍKLADOCH/

Andrej BOTEK

docent, Faculty of architecture and design, Slovak university of technology in Bratislava, Nám. Slobody 19, 812 45 Bratislava, Slovakia, and.botek@gmail.com, andrej.botek@stuba.sk, 00421904250579

Abstract

The modern art in its development is a result of a secularisation that began its way at about 200 years ago. The enormous change was achieved not only in the displaying means (deformation, releasing of form, structure, and realistic manner), but also in the field of themes. Christian religion (till that time the main actor in the art development) with its volume of themes and stories, ceased to be a topic for the painters and sculptors. But christianity is deep connect with the main existential questions of the human life and its sense. The articel deals with using of religious themes in the modern art as a manner to interpretate basic situations by giving examples from the work of selected painters.

Keywords

Modern art, Christianity, painting, religious themes, symbolism

SUMMARY

Christianity has during centuries influenced and inspired the cultural and artistical development, has bruoght up themes and its institutions were the biggest customer and instigator in the field of art. Since the second half of the 19th century began the process of secularisation and we can observe a significant departure of artists from religion and its motifs. Art began to be profiled as a separate reality, which creates its own laws. The enormous change was achieved not only in the displaying means (deformation, releasing of form, structure, and realistic manner), but also in the field of themes. A large number of artitic streams were created, which transformed the principles valid untill that time. The depicted reality is changed and released, importance is seen in the individual manner. The Christian religious message, with its universality, reaches the deepest inside of people and the basic Christian themes (as Crucifixion, Last Supper, Pieta, etc) have become a manifestation of existential questions of the meaning of life, suffering, breakthrough situations and personal dramas. The modern artists, for whom the religious faith was not a essential component, in certain specific situations express their inner attitudes by using basic Christian thems. We cannot understand them as identification with institutional religion, but they show us the deep roots of the Christian message in the collective consciousness. The article shows examples of modern artists, where the autors used religious motive and preserved the patterns of form of his work: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Dalí, Chagall, Ernst, Sutherland, Redon, Picasso, Rouault, Warhol, Triegel.

(Language: slovak)

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