Open AccessArt, sacred space and utopia
Author(s) -
Richard A. Cohen
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
religija ir kultūra
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1822-4571
pISSN - 1822-4539
DOI - 10.15388/relig.2008.1.2795
Subject(s) - idolatry , mythology , utopia , topos theory , opposition (politics) , judaism , talmud , art , art history , space (punctuation) , philosophy , aesthetics , religious studies , literature , theology , law , politics , political science , linguistics
Monotheist religions oppose the idolatry which makes space sacred and the mythological world upon which all idolatry depends. Art, used by monotheisms and mythologies, is neutral in this opposition. The example of Judaism is invoked to show how two apparently “sacred spaces,” the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and the conjugal bed of the home, represent not sacralizations of places but displacements through the intensification of an ethical extra-territorial u-topos.