The great sacred art of the Western tradition was not made for museums. It was made as an aid to contemplation, a vehicle for interior encounter, a way of saying in image and form what resisted being said in words.

This course traces the relationship between mysticism and the arts across centuries, including literature and poetry, with sustained attention to the Christian tradition and its Islamic and Judaic parallels. Eastern sacred art enters the course as a mirror — illuminating, by contrast and by resonance, what the Western tradition was reaching toward.