BY OUR LADY: A Brief and Eclectic Survey of Art as Potential Prayer from the 7th Century to the 21st

Abstract

This paper examines works of poetry, visual art, and performance art from a variety of cultures and time periods in an attempt to approach an understanding of the defining features of prayer, to the extent that these might exist. The paper probes the extent to which various kinds of art can operate as prayer with and without regard to specific religion, identified speaker, or even language. An eclectic sampling approach is utilized, and the materials discussed include (but are not limited to) Cædmon's Hymn, Meredith Monk's Dolmen Music, Johanne Laache's Winter Choir, the evolution of Mexican ex-voto artwork, and Jasmine Khaliq's vasco road poems.