Religious Wall Paintings

Wall Painting may have started in caves but it ended up as the finest of fine arts successfully landing in the hands of the noblest institution of all which is the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, such religious institution monopolized the field of arts. If so, then what was expected from paintings then but religious paintings!

From Byzantine era moving forth, the classic altar pieces, church murals, fresco, etc are still widely venerated to-date. In fact, most of the churches all throughout the globe were able to preserve such beautiful and delicately created pieces of artworks. They might not be from Byzantine but you can tell just by looking at them that they have surpassed calamities experienced in centuries. We see these religious paintings in Europe and many as well are Asian arts. In the Philippines alone, a visiting guest will be prompted or enticed to visit antique churches as well as new ones if he or she wants to have a good look of wall paintings. Museum may be few and in fact and visiting them to enjoy fine arts is unnecessary if only the desire is to feed the simple craving of the eye. From religious paintings carried over from ancient times were expressive artworks to challenge the belief of religion. Expression was made to be very creative to hide the rebellious meaning of the art. They were not vulgar. They were not a direct representation of opposition lest they’d not be called art.

As years went by religious wall paintings were not just confined to Christianity. Other Asian countries, as well, used art as depiction of their own belief. You see Buddhism by just throwing in a glance to an artwork and many other more religions covering Asian art. This is why in this generation which was a big hop from pre-modern age where art was centered to Roman Catholics alone, religious paintings are widespread throughout the continent only because among the regions of the Globe, Asia is known for its diverse religions.

Going back with wall painting many centuries ago, the church lost its tight grip over arts. It was early renaissance to modern age when art started to show opposing views to what the Church upheld. However as mentioned, these arts may invoke critical thinking but still remained to be very creative and style and was never vulgar. The meaning was in depth yet it needed to be discerned. And they were still called religious wall paintings because they were still inspired by faith; crafting them needed religion to be the subject of the art. And not only that such art invoked critical thinking but also was crafted in a more creative manner to not fully reveal its real meaning.