OP-ED: Does Art Need Religion?

BIG THINK
By Bob Duggan

Giovanni Bellini, The San Zaccaria Altarpiece (detail), 1505

Everyone knows there are two things you never bring up in conversation—politics and religion. Although it may be a fool’s errand to call for more religion in contemporary art given all the justifiably negative baggage surrounding religion and the very real possibility that complaints about contemporary art are pure short-sightedness only time can cure, it’s worth considering in light of Rank’s theories that, if art is about artists in search of immortality, maybe they can do it by extending their reach into the religious and going far beyond their mundane, earthly grasp. Or else what’s a heaven (or religion) for? [link]