Art & the Sacred Today

Does art need to have a sacred dimension to be art at all? What are the sources of inspiration? In this dialogue, which is the 102nd in the series, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, explore how meaning and beauty, truth and connection might be manifested in the arts. What is the role of reverence and empathy, place and intelligence? Conversely, what is lost when art loses a reference beyond the human and mechanical world? If art energizes the human spirit, encourages awareness, and revitalises symbols, how might it speak to us today of what it is be human and to live in a more than human world? 

The conversation took place in The Garrison Chapel, Chelsea, and was organised by The King’s Foundation. 

Chapters 

0:00 V: Welcome, cave art and the meaning of sympathy 

6:09 R: Museums as temples, art stripped of the sacred 

13:38 V: A deconsecrated chapel, the Vatican's galleries and the spectator 

21:19 R: Cultural breaks and continuity, from Egypt to India 

24:56 V: One divine source, many forms; Dante and iconoclasm 

29:24 R: Keith Critchlow, geometry and the forms of nature 

33:23 V: Beauty's call, prayer at Lascaux, Piero della Francesca and Blake 

38:37 R: Making by hand, from stone tools to museums of bones 

42:22 V: Closing remarks