Aesthetic manifestations in religious practice – a basic grammar

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some aspects on function in relation to aesthetic manifestations in religious practice. The main point of argument is that the relationship between the meaning of the aesthetic object and its subject can successfully be described by using the grammatical terminology of the pronoun. This creates a taxonomy with an open enough structure to allow interpretations from various fields of research to be compared on equal grounds on their merits as interpretations. The following discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of iconographic method of analysis versus function is accompanied by an example from the Christian context chosen on several merits, one being that the subject matter appears to have been clearly established.

Keywords

• Methodology
• Aesthetics
• Art
• Iconography
• Painting
• Artists