MAVCOR Journal

MAVCOR Journal is an open access born-digital, double blind peer-reviewed journal dedicated to promoting conversation about material and visual cultures of religion. Published by the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University and reviewed by members of our distinguished Editorial Board and other experts, MAVCOR Journal encourages contributors to think deeply about the objects, performances, sounds, and digital experiences that have framed and continue to frame human engagement with religion broadly understood across diverse cultures, regions, traditions, and historical periods.

Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion

MAVCOR began publishing Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion in 2014. In 2017 we selected a new name, MAVCOR Journal. Articles published prior to 2017 are considered part of Conversations and are listed as such under Volumes in the MAVCOR Journal menu.

Object Narratives Alexander Anderson, Abigail Hutchinson: A Young Woman Hopefully Converted Sonia Hazard

That “Protestants don’t have pictures” remains a common generalization. Yet in the early nineteenth century, nothing could be further from the truth. Protestant publishers like the nonsectarian American Tract Society (ATS) lavishly decorated their tracts with small but expressive printed illustrations.

Object Narratives The Chapel of Our Lord of the Miracles (La Capilla de Nuestro Señor de los Milagros), San Antonio, Texas Timothy Matovina

No exact date is known for the founding in San Antonio, Texas, of the Capilla de Nuestro Señor de los Milagros (Chapel of the Lord of Miracles), or Capilla de los Milagros, as it is sometimes called. Visitors to the shrine and its central Christ image offer both their orations and material expressions of prayer.

Object Narratives Opening Virgin (Vierge Ouvrante) Shira Brisman

This object is an example of a type of small-scale Christian moveable-part medieval sculpture called a Vierge Ouvrante (“Opening Virgin”).

Object Narratives Traveling Image of the Holy Child of Atocha (Santo Niño de Atocha), Plateros, Mexico Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Daisy Vargas

Each year, certain special religious images are ceremonially brought from Mexico and Central America to visit Catholic devotional communities in Southern California. These devotional statues of Catholic saints are “imágenes peregrinas,” pilgrim or traveling images.

Object Narratives Arthur B. Davies, Sacramental Trees Emily Gephart

Two maidens, one bright and one shadowy, lead an ox through a curiously dense, shallow, and cubistically-fragmented woodland, heading (one presumes) through the titular sacramental trees and towards an uncertain destination.

Object Narratives Drain-spout in the Form of a Flying Celestial Figure Tamara I. Sears

Hovering above the central courtyard of a Hindu monastery at the rural central-Indian village of Chandrehe was once a set of finely sculpted flying celestials, known within their original, tenth-century context as gandharvas, heavenly singers in the court of the gods, or vidya-dharas, meaning “carriers of truth.”

Object Narratives Thousand-armed and Thousand-eyed Avalokiteshvara Michelle C. Wang

Avalokiteshvara, one of the most important bodhisattvas in Buddhism, was popularly known as the “perceiver of the world’s cries.” Bodhisattvas, meaning literally “enlightened beings,” were devoted, out of a deep sense of compassion, to aiding other sentient beings in their quest for enlightenment, even to the point of postponing their own entry into nirvana.

Object Narratives The Vincent and Mary Markham Monument Annette Stott

In the summer of 1900, Denver acquired an unusual sculpture to mark the last resting place of pioneer attorney Vincent Daniel Markham (1826-1895) and his wife Mary (ca. 1834-1893).

Object Narratives Cuzco Miter Maya Stanfield-Mazzi

The Cathedral of Cuzco, Peru holds several liturgical ornaments from the Spanish colonial period in its treasury. Among them is a magnificent embroidered miter, the headdress worn by bishops for blessings, baptisms, and processions.

Object Narratives Kwame "Almighty" Akoto, The Supernatural Eyes of God Birgit Meyer

During a trip to Ghana in May 2010, I visited the roadside shop and atelier of painter Kwame Akoto, alias “Almighty,” a name he adopted so as to praise the power of God.

Object Narratives Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth A.T. Coates

Clarence Larkin’s dispensationalist chart “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (1920) offers a detailed schematic of biblical history. The artistic product of an individual with experience in mechanical draftsmanship, Larkin’s chart shows how events and epochs fit together like parts in a salvation machine.

Object Narratives Icon of Mary Elena Kravchenko

Icons move. They cross national borders and traditional boundaries. They show up in the least expected places.

Object Narratives Ancestor portraits at Mogao Cave 231 Winston Kyan

The integration of “secular” figures into a Buddhist cave complicates the separation established by both medieval Chinese authors and modern scholars of Buddhist art between practices of familial commemoration and religious devotion.

Object Narratives Hans Holbein the Younger, Dead Christ Entombed Mia Mochizuki

“Why, some people may lose their faith looking at that picture!” Dostoyevsky famously had his fictional character Prince Myshkin exclaim over Hans Holbein the Younger’s Dead Christ Entombed.

Object Narratives Skull boxes Maura Coughlin

Skull boxes that both memorialized a dead individual and displayed the deceased person’s skull were made in Brittany from the eighteenth century to about 1900.

Object Narratives External Eyes on Jain Temple Icons John E. Cort

These glass eyes seem to look intently at the viewer, seizing the viewer’s attention. This is precisely what they are intended to do by the Shvetambar Murtipujak Jains of western India; it is also precisely why the Digambar Jains of western India strenuously object to them.

Object Narratives The Virgin of Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain Jeanette Favrot Peterson

This Marian icon cannot be characterized as a single object as the perception of her authenticity, from which she gains her numinous power, draws on two distinct representations, one nested inside the other.

Object Narratives The Dolgellau Chalice and Paten Allison Stielau

In 1890 two men working in the area around Dolgellau in North Wales discovered this pair of objects in a crevice between rocks. Encrusted with soil and plant matter, the objects were not at first identifiable.

Object Narratives The Cross of Motupe Emily C. Floyd

Credited with saving the town from sure disaster, the Cross of Motupe became the centerpiece of a devotion that drew pilgrims from throughout the region, and eventually from throughout Peru.

Object Narratives Asher Durand, In the Woods Rebecca Bedell

In June 1840, Asher Durand wrote in his journal: “Today again is Sunday. I have declined attendance on church service, the better to indulge reflection unrestrained under the high canopy of heaven, amidst the expanse of waters—fit place to worship God and contemplate the wonders of his power.”

Object Narratives Buddhist votive stele with carved Buddhist figures and inscriptions Kate Lingley

This is a Buddhist votive stele made in the sixth century in north central China. It probably stood either in the courtyard of a Buddhist monastery, or in a public place such as a market square, or at a major crossroads.

Object Narratives Benjamin Paul Akers, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Lauren Lessing

Given the fact that Benjamin Paul Akers was a Protestant working at a time when nativist and anti-Catholic sentiments ran high in the United States, his choice to depict a miracle performed by an Eastern European saint seems peculiar, as does the popularity of his sculpture.

Object Narratives Barnett Newman, The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachtani Valerie Hellstein

According to the art critic Harold Rosenberg there is nothing religious about Barnett Newman’s series of fourteen roughly human-sized, black and white paintings, The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachtani.

Object Narratives Mary Lyman’s Mourning Piece Jamie L. Brummitt

Mary Lyman’s mourning piece served as visual and material evidence of her education, participation in mourning practices, and her religious and social formation.

Madonna of the Fire Object Narratives Madonna of the Fire Lisa Pon

Forlì's Madonna of the Fire is a large fifteenth-century woodcut almost twenty inches high and sixteen inches wide.

Object Narratives Christ Crucified in the Gellone Sacramentary Lawrence Nees

The image of Christ on the Cross, either as an element of a narrative scene (a Crucifixion) or as an isolated object of devotion (a Crucifix) is so common in the artistic and religious traditions of the last millennium of Western art, especially but not only in the Catholic tradition, that it is seldom recognized that such images are altogether absent during the first centuries of Christianity, and remain rare at least through the eighth century of the common era.

Object Narratives Te amo heart David Morgan

This object was purchased in an upscale novelty shop catering to tourists in downtown Boulder, Colorado, in 2010 for $11.95. Although at first blush it appears to be a Sacred Heart of Jesus, on second look the banner, which reads “te amo,” Spanish for “I love you,” indicates that the heart may not belong to Jesus.

Object Narratives The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace David L. McMahan

Numerous photographs appear to reveal what adherents are calling “mandala lights” around the Jade Buddha for Universal Peace as it makes its way around the world on a tour of Buddhist temples, monasteries, town squares, and museums.

Object Narratives Carved rock outcropping, Machu Picchu Claudia Brittenham

For the Inca, the landscape was both sacred and animate, full of forces that demanded respect and offerings. Distant mountain peaks, called apu—a term of respect meaning “lord”—were among the most powerful of these forces.

Object Narratives Chicken-Feeding Girl Karil J. Kucera

To most modern visitors, the Chicken-Feeding Girl displays the stereotypical concern of a doting mother, and a number of scholars have described this image as representative of the pastoral life of the region during the Song Dynasty (960—1279 CE). While this is in fact one way to interpret the work, the Song dynasty audience for Chicken-Feeding Girl read her presence at the site in an entirely different manner.

Object Narratives Repurposed Choir Loft, Lake View Lutheran Church (ELCA), Chicago Gretchen Buggeln

Lake View Lutheran Church on Chicago’s north side is the fourth building of a congregation founded by Scandinavian immigrants in 1848. About 1960, demographic changes pushed the congregation to relocate and rebuild.

Object Narratives Death Cart (La Muerte en su Carreta) Miguel de Baca

This dramatic death cart is an object that was used in acts of corporal penance performed by the Hermanos de la Fraternidad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno (Brothers of the Pious Fraternity of Our Father Jesus of Nazareth).

Object Narratives Buddha Image described as "King Udayana Image" Tamami Hamada

This form is replicated in over 70 statues remaining at Longmen. The votive inscriptions of the statues inform us that they were given the specific title “King Udayana Image,” and not considered as a general Tathagata image, such as the Buddha Sakyamuni.

Object Narratives Woman performing her devotion to the Hindu god Shiva, in the form of a Linga Holly Shaffer

In this single folio, a woman is engaged in prayer. She sits on a pink cloth, her head in profile, with her body turned three-quarters to the viewer. Her right hand is covered by a golden textile, under which she counts beads on a rosary in meditation. She has garlanded the linga, or symbol of the Hindu god Shiva, and its three stripes of orange are mirrored on her forehead.

Object Narratives John Valentine Haidt, Christ with a tau cross standing on top of the world and bleeding from his five wounds Jason David LaFountain

This is the only known drawing by John Valentine Haidt, the most important Moravian artist of the eighteenth century. It appears at the opening of a small black-leather-bound hymnal that belonged to Haidt, upon a sheet of paper lightly stained and speckled with rusty spots.

Object Narratives The Chart of the Magic Presence Erika Doss

The Chart of the Magic Presence is the visual synopsis of the self-centered teleology of “I AM,” a new religious movement founded in 1932 by Guy and Edna Ballard.

Essays Repositioning Plautilla Nelli’s Lamentation Mary D. Garrard

My favorite underrated work of art is the Lamentation by Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-1588), the first woman artist in Renaissance Florence with an oeuvre to go with her name. This large altar painting was created for the Dominican convent of Saint Catherine of Siena, where it stood, nearly ten feet high, on a prominent altar in the convent’s public church.

Object Narratives Kongo Triple Crucifix Cécile Fromont

Elaborately crafted artworks, jealously kept insignia of power, and piously cherished devotional paraphernalia, central African crucifixes illustrate the Kongo people’s deep and enduring engagement with the visual forms and religious message of Christianity.

Object Narratives The Bamberg Rider Shirin Fozi

A young king sits tall in the saddle, gazing intently at something in the distance. There is apparently nowhere for the steed to go: horse and rider are perched on a leafy pedestal that is just large enough to bear their life-size forms, and they have stood frozen there since they were carved into the fabric of Bamberg Cathedral in the thirteenth century.

Conversations Holland Cotter: An Art Critic on Art and Religion Interviewed by Ashley Makar

Ashley Makar spoke with Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic and a senior writer at The New York Times, at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Conference in Chicago on November 18, 2012.