April 27, 2026—How Artists Depict Divinity...and Fail
LECTURE & DISCUSSION

1040 Ridge Road, Munster, IN

In a culture that insists on giving the ineffable a face, the history of art is littered with bold attempts to picture the unpicturable, with some degree of success and many more failures. This Art In Focus lecture traces a winding path through biblical texts, painted altarpieces, carved idols, and even the modern cathedral of the cinema, asking what happens when human imagination reaches for the divine and comes up short. Across centuries and cultures, artists have fashioned gods in their own image, revealing less about heaven than about earthly longing, limitation, and the persistent desire to see what cannot, perhaps should not, be seen. What does it mean to depict divinity?