Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum

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St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi
The Four Sleepers
The Four Sleepers

How can art represent that which is unseeable?

Art has been used in many cultures and at many times as a way of giving concrete form to mystical or spiritual experience. In this way, it has made the dreams, visions, and spiritual journeys of the privileged few accessible to a wider community. In these images, however, the experience of the religious figures—whether a state of ecstasy or awakening—remains internalized. Rather than giving the viewer direct access to these experiences, the images urge the viewer to cultivate his or her own.


Questions to Consider

  • Each of these images offers a quiet moment—rest in one case, reflection in the other. At the same time, each depicts what might be understood as a moment of transcendence. How does each image express or hint at a state of profound spiritual revelation?
  • How do the formal elements of these works (e.g., light, composition, color, etc.) condition your responses to them? Do you think that these images are able to convey their messages through visual language alone? What does knowledge of religious and historical context add to your understanding of each work?
  • These works were both likely intended to provide models for the pious. In this case, why do you think they present their figures’ spiritual experiences in terms that are internal, hence not visible to the viewer? How might such images be effective in ways that more tangible manifestations of spiritual experiences are not? How might they be less effective?

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