In Visible Presence: The role of light in shaping religious atmospheres

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapportBidrag til bog/antologiForskningfagfællebedømt

This chapter explores the uses and perception of light in religious architecture. Often characterized as an ambiguous materiality—neither concrete and tangible nor distinctly immaterial—light seems to offer itself readily as both matter and metaphor for the divine. We argue in this chapter that this is precisely what happens in contemporary Danish churches, yet not without conflicts between the ideal of immaterial divinity and the need for tangible religious practices. We trace a number of luminous as well as numinous qualities to medieval church architecture, still in use today, and show that despite architectural continuities, modernist churches capture and cherish light in a number of ways that emphasize mainly its immaterial aspects. Architectonic discourse is seen as challenged by light practices in the churches, where light lends itself as an instrument for bridging the ontological positions of matter and spirit.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelThe Oxford Handbook of Light in Archaeology
RedaktørerKonstantinos Papadopoulos, Holley Moyes
UdgivelsesstedOxford
ForlagOxford University Press
Publikationsdato2022
Sider303-324
Kapitel15
ISBN (Trykt)9780198788218
ISBN (Elektronisk)9780191830174
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022

ID: 108649720