Art has some impact on the 'dogma' part of religion too; the embellishment of a religious myth can become the de facto standard for that myth, as we can see in Michelangelo's La Creazione. (Iconically, the ancient and patriarchal God has a full but not ginormous beard while Adam, who never owned a razor, doesn't. Despite the myth being Middle Eastern, God and Adam both look convincingly European.)
Reflection changes people. Art helps change their perceptions; Science helps change their understanding of cause and consequence. Our shifting change in perceptions, causes and consequences can certainly change us spiritually -- by spirit here I mean 'who we think we are, how we want to relate to one another and how we want to achieve meaning in our lives'.
Art has some impact on the 'dogma' part of religion too; the embellishment of a religious myth can become the de facto standard for that myth, as we can see in Michelangelo's La Creazione. (Iconically, the ancient and patriarchal God has a full but not ginormous beard while Adam, who never owned a razor, doesn't. Despite the myth being Middle Eastern, God and Adam both look convincingly European.) So Art can change how we think spiritually regardless of religion, and also how we approach religious dogma. But so too can Science.
I think it's actually simpler and more mundane than that -- whatever the myth means to people personally, would viewers have accepted Michelangelo's representation as readily if he hadn't appealed to their prejudices? And in supporting their prejudices rather than challenging them, did Michelangelo not strengthen and sustain cultural bias and delusion?
You left out Eve, who is still in some kind of Gnostic/Sophia incestuous communion with the Major Diety.
I was actually wondering about the theme of primordial incest as the type of myth that gets replaced in the modern world (the world since writing? The world since printing? The world since twitter?) by the myth of primordial ignorance/bliss/void/orgasmic_nothingness.
In the Adam and Eve story knowledge and transgression remove humanity from a situation of primordial (incestuous?) bliss. In Michelangelo's image, this is broken down a bit: Adam is made of clay, but Eve is more like pure information (Sophia-like in Gnostic Myth) in the mental world of the Divine. So there is no incest (unless information has an interesting relation with its Matrix ie in this case a God-Womb), instead there is the modern imagery of the primordial blissful void that information will fill.
I think it's actually simpler and more mundane than that -- whatever the myth means to people personally, would viewers have accepted Michelangelo's representation as readily if he hadn't appealed to their prejudices? And in supporting their prejudices rather than challenging them, did Michelangelo not strengthen and sustain cultural bias and delusion?
Art can either reinforce or challenge our prejudices, of course. In this regard it's got more latitude than science, which only progresses by making us aware of our ignorance and errors.
Yes - I think that's called 'evidence'.
Yes, and we can certainly overlook or dismiss the effort and thought that goes into the design process just because there's not a lot of record of that. However, the final product is a record of the final decisions made -- whether those decisions were made consciously or unconsciously.
)That would've been very post-modern of him.
But if it were so, why isn't the observer drawn into the painting?In Renaissance Italian society, women must be possessed -- by fathers, by husbands. You don't leave them running loose. And fathers are very fond of their daughters. Maybe that explains it?
