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Man has always tried to picture God and He has always escaped our grasp. At various periods in their history, religions have either extolled images of divine beings or violently rejected them. Christianity and Islam have reacted in diametrically opposite ways to this desire to "see God". By making Jesus an incarnate God, Christianity opened the door to artistic creation and the representation of the human form. Nevertheless, the image of God appears rather late in Christian art, in the 10th century, and reaches a flamboyant pinnacle in Baroque art. Islam, on the other hand, is radically opposed to any representation of the divine. Muslim calligraphy is the only visual expression of the sacred, just as psalms are its musical expression. |
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Detail of the altarpiece of the Chapel of Sainte-Marie-d’en-Haut, Grenoble 17th century Collection of the Musée Dauphinois In this altarpiece, God is depicted as the Ancient of Days, a white-haired, bearded figure, enthroned on clouds and surrounded by cherubs. |
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