The meaning behind the masterpiece

Fr Armand de Malleray’s ‘Painting Reality’ invites readers to look beyond aesthetics and history to recover the theological meaning embedded within sacred art

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Painting Salvation: A Fresh Look at Twelve Classical Paintings by Armand de Malleray FSSP (Arouca Press, 216pp)

Sacred art more often than not suffers a curious fate: admired for its beauty, studied for its history and classified for its symbolism, it is frequently approached through almost every lens except the one that originally gave it life. In Painting Reality, Fr Armand de Malleray presents an antidote by beginning from the conviction that Christian paintings are ultimately theological before they are anything else.

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