The "Return" of Religion in the Scholarship of American Art

The “Rediscovery” of Religion in Contemporary Nigerian Art History

“…Art historian Sally M. Promey's authored an article for The Art Bulletin, the preeminent journal of the academic association of American art historians. 25 Promey's article, "The 'Return' of Religion in the Scholarship of American Art," surveys American art historiography and recounts how "the study of religion within the art history of the United States lost ground" around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when universities and museums became the "principal home for the practice of art history." 26 Promey suggests that the power and institutional orientation of universities in general resisted consideration of Christian art.…”

The Visual Culture of Japanese Buddhism from the Early Modern Period to the Present

“…This situation derives from ideas about religion promulgated by 19th century European intellectuals who belittled the value of formal religious institutions to the modern world. Such critiques are now described as the ‘Secularization Theory of Modernity’ (Promey 2003, p. 584), which influenced Japanese politicians and scholars as they struggled to reinvent their country as a modern nation in the Meiji period (1868–1912). These leaders closely identified institutional Buddhism with Japan’s more primitive past and led them to laud only ancient and medieval Japanese Buddhist temple complexes and imagery as the nation’s unsurpassed cultural patrimony.…”

Visual Culture and American Religions

“…Religion’s ‘return’ to scholarship on American art, and art’s reentry into the study of American religions, occurred because of shifts in academic culture generally; the introduction of new methodologies and their applications in the disciplines of art history and religious studies; and the interdisciplinary subject’s institutionalization in universities, museums, and publishing houses 1 . Art historian Sally Promey (1999, 2003) outlines one of the most significant factors: the secularization theory of modernity’s strong influence on the formation of American academic culture. In the second half of the 19th century, major thinkers like Max Weber (1864–1920), Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), and Karl Marx (1818–1883) built on the Enlightenment critique of religion and claimed that the rise of the modern world necessitated religion’s decline.…”

“…The rise of social history and cultural studies as legitimate interpretive strategies also opened the door to the serious study of visual culture and religion (Plate 2004b and Promey 2003). In art history, scholars moved away from the study of pure form, iconographical analysis, canonical works, and artistic biography and toward an understanding of art’s cultural contexts and the ways of seeing it elicits.…”

“…Three of these projects have been particularly instrumental in creating networks of scholars interested in the connections between and among art, religion and culture: The Visual Culture of American Religions Project (1995–2000), organized by art historians David Morgan and Sally Promey and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Lilly Endowment Inc.; The Material History of American Religion Project (1995–2001), based at the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University and supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc.; and New Directions in the Study of Art and Religion (1999–2004) at The Gallery at the American Bible Study, sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation. The publications produced by the participants of these collaborative projects provide a critical foundation for the study of art and religion and serve as great entries for scholars interested in the topic (Morgan & Promey 2000, 2001; Promey 2003; Material History of American Religion Project 2001; Heller 2004).…”