ALEXANDRIA, Va., January 31, 2025 – Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) is delighted to announce the publication of Art and the Experience of the Divine (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2024) by art collector Anne Searle Bent, and The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., dean and president of VTS and president of The General Theological Seminary.

The book explores the ways in which people find faith and invites the reader to encounter God through art. It opens by making the case for the centrality of the visual arts as a vehicle to experience the divine, looking at how art can be used as a focus for prayer and meditation to make a spiritual reality present to the seeker.

This spiritual theory of art is followed by 22 devotional reflections on Old Master drawings with biblical or spiritual themes, including work by Polidoro da Caravaggio, Raphael and Nikolaus Knupfer, to demonstrate how the proper reading of art can lead to new and powerful ways of thinking about the divine.

The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., dean and president of VTS and president of The General Theological Seminary, said: “Art has always been a way to connect with the divine. In an age of skepticism, we hope this book shows how those outside the family of faith can allow art to teach and show them the spiritual nature of the universe.”

Miroslav Volf, professor of theology, Yale University, said: “We all need aids on our way to God and with God. The authors make a compelling case that art can be such an aid and then show how. Anne Bent’s meditations and prayers exude attentive admiration for art and authentic devotion to God.”

“The rich and ancient relationship between religious experience and beliefs and art is a fascinating topic to explore. The approach of the authors (a Christian theologian and an expert in Old Master drawings) is fresh, informal, and invitational. The authors invite the reader to think with them, in an informed and interdisciplinary way, about how art can and does inform and enrich religious beliefs and feelings and, in turn, how religious beliefs and feelings help shape one’s perceptions of works of art,” said Heidi Hadsell, president emeritus, Hartford International University of Religion and Peace.

You can purchase Art and the Experience of the Divine (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2024) here.