ABSTRACT
First, it might be helpful to define approximately what I meanby the words religion and art. Religion in this book means a named,noncultic, major system of belief.1 In the art world, for reasons that will become apparent, the religion in question is often Catholicism, and sometimes Protestantism. Rarely it is Judaism. Even more rarely, Islam or Buddhism. Religion also means the trappings of such systems: the rituals, liturgies, catechisms, calendars, holy days, vestments, prayers, hymns and songs, homilies, obligations, sacraments, confessions and vows, mitzvahs, pilgrimages, credos and commandments, and sacred texts. Religion is therefore public and social, requiring observance, priests or ministers or rabbis, as well as choirs or cantors. It involves the family, the congregation, and the wider community.
