Are we able (and allowed) to think of the divine in a corporeal way? Isn’t artistic expression, which originated from both
the human mind and body, intrinsically a bodily matter? This publication is the result of the symposium ‘The Human Body: Religion and the Visual Arts’, hosted by K.U.Leuven’s Lieven Gevaert Centre in 2006. Arguably, Christian doctrine is one with the body; via healing, sacrifi ce and salvation, and most potently via God’s Incarnation. How do we reconcile this with the body as the site for sin? Contemporary culture increasingly values the image, above all else, and simultaneously generates a new ‘sinful’ conception of the body in need of constant physical improvement. From many fi elds of interest and with a variety of methodological approaches, the authors present content and raise questions that are of interest to scholars of both art and religion.