ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the doctrine of the Ascension and the way it has been appropriated through Christian history, particularly through the visual arts but also to a limited degree in some other media, including poetry, music and more literary sermons. Its objective is not to decry more conventional doctrinal treatments but rather to consider what happens when attempts to engage an audience are more directly in play. The artistic tradition is concerned to engage, there is much more emphasis on the potential relevance of the doctrine to the viewer, listener or reader, and so as much concern with the impact on us as on Christ. This means there is a desire to speak of a body transfigured that opens up the possibility of our own transfiguration. Poets and composers too have struggled to find adequate imagery to capture that sense of a continuing but transfigured humanity.
