The incarnated spirit - concerning the christian birth of western art

The Christian position of the New Testament regarding the Old Testament concept of the visuality is complex and paradoxical. As for the prohibition or the impossibility of showing God in statues and pictures - Christianity presents the vision of the incarnation, the transformation of the spirit into the flesh. The divine speech that created the world as an abstract energetic and spiritual dimension was embodied in the flesh and body of Jesus Christ as the divine man. In the seminar we will examine this tension between the spiritual and the physical in Christianity and how it is expressed in different ways in Western culture and art until today, from Eastern and Western icons to modern and contemporary art.