Is there a special relationship between Art and spirituality? How does religious art fit into this picture?
The first art was religious and used highly spiritual imagery. It was made on caves miles deep within the earth, painting natural occurring cathedrals. Chauvet Cave paintings are among the oldest examples of spiritual art. They are thought to have been used in ceremonial magic. A sort of artist magic whereby shamans ventured deep into caves. Magic was the precursor to religion so there are deep roots between art and spirituality influencing religious art.

Now why would anybody risk life and limb to go spelunking with stone age technology just to paint some buffalo stuff on the wall? Was it just art? No, clearly there was some shamanistic element to the emergence of art. I think conclusively we can say that definitely art played a pivotal role in the events and coincidences that led to the rapid advances in human intelligence. It was a period known as “the minds big bang.”
Ah yes, Creative thinking. That’s the trigger word here. An interconnected relationship arose whereby the abstract set of connections that could be surmised about the world were then transmogrified into art; ta-da! So it therefore goes without question that the there is definitely distinction of art being highly integral to spirituality.
Ok, art and spirituality go definitively hand in hand. Indeed religion has always piggybacked on the elaborate genius of artists and their wondrous creations. Just walk into your modern day Pentecostal church and watch the people in the pews completely wig out. Speaking in tongues is just pure fun.
Certainly the common everyday religious person gets a heavy does of sacred pictures, symbols, dances, chants, hymns, tunes and so on. I haven’t even mentioned the creative meditative act of prayer. This is because the arts are vehicles for making these spiritual connections. They function in order to highly invigorate the senses to be able to accept the doctrine. Plato said that art was helpful for teaching and for appealing to the spirit.
Religious art has always been used to move the message.
It’s never really been about the images themselves in this way. Just look at Islam & Judaism for example. Both use Aniconism which is actually the absence of material representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. However each employ a careful visual aesthetic which with all intents and purposes invigorates the spirit. Making reference to the magic of art has become taboo in various cultures, particularly in the monotheistic Abrahamic religions . However despite that fact they all still employ a backlog of design elements and embellishments which decorate and adorn places of worship. So just looking at the history that art has played in the transformation of spirituality makes it safe to say that the art and spirituality are integral to one another.
Get Medieval Christian on your ass

Art in the medieval period was representative of the beginning of the western worlds gradual movement towards christianity. Indeed an immense volume of art in a multitude of forms was commissioned by the church. Christians heavily used their symbolism like a weapon. So in this sense the beginning of Christianity was a proliferation of artistic and viral ideals about the nature of reality.
Likewise the Catholic church was the biggest donor to the arts during this period. By all means, it had become the largest pre-Disney cultural institution. I say that because archetypes in Disney movies played the same role in molding peoples minds as they did in crafting the world from christianity. As a result the power of the Catholic church slowly began to spread & influence all of Europe.
Consequently, the power and money with which the church was able to accumulate put it in a great place for commissioning works of art. From this period a large variety of art works in many different forms emerged. Paintings, frescoes, murals, sculptures and manuscripts came from this marvelous period of creativity. What was left was an enormous body of work that survives to this day. As a result Europe is peppered by this diverse artistic variety of art and spirituality. Naturally this is probably the largest period of artistic spreading in history.
Early Christian Spiritual Art
Naturally, the birthplace of christianity was in the Roman Empire. So of course Christian art had a direct influence from classic roman and greek designs. Therefore Christian themes in art also include similar use of sacred statues and holy images. Actually homes of christians were adorned with these images and like Greek shrines to Apollo the home became a hearth of their patron deity Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact it kind of brings to mind the modern day Christian households with these high end Thomas Kinkade prints. There is still this important element of adopting images. Although modern christianity has become slightly an-iconic. Medieval Christianity, however, was replete with art.
Once Christianity was legalized in the 4th century these pieces of art started leaving the household and ended up inside of the churches. Around this era artists depicted Biblical themes and developed its own style. From here the Roman realism changed. Christianity had its very own aesthetic. That was religious idealism. They traded the statuesque perfection of ancient Roman art for the hyper religious views of painted frescoes and what not.
How Christians Artists got Busy in the Byzantine Empire
So since the fall of Rome Byzantium aka “The Byzantine Empire” was the Europe version of “Make America Great Again.” It was huge and vast. Without question, it was the greatest political super power in all of Europe.
Byzantium went about declaring Christianity as its official religion. So for that reason between the 5th century to its epic demise in the 15th century, the Byzantine Empire started a campaign of rich and diverse creation of highly spiritual Christian art. This art was actually declared to create by the Emperor of Byzantium himself. As a result it became a bastion of ritualistic & ceremonial cultural knick knacks.
From 5th century to its fall in the 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was home to a very rich and diverse range of Christian art, often patronized by the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Emperor himself. Indeed one could say that Constantinople was the capital of Europe. It had some the most quintessential spiritual artwork of Christendom. Mainly mosaics. Mosaics were the main attraction and they were everywhere. They were on buildings, churches, street corners and were even brought into the homes of believers to help strengthen their spirituality.
Gothic art
Religious Art Wears a Hijab
Islam has a dress code. Fashion sense is art.So Islamic art, per se, characterizes the art and architecture produced in Muslim ruled lands. Like I’ve said before; Islam is an-iconic. Therefore there can be no religious idealism in the artworks themselves. Hence the whole thing about not drawing the prophet Muhammad. However islam was still able to foster and develop a very distinct artistic language that can be seen all over art and architecture of the Muslim world
