Divine Visions: A Global Exploration of Devotional Art and Iconography, c. 1200–1700

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite proposals for a Special Issue titled “Divine Visions: A Global Exploration of Devotional Art and Iconography, c. 1200–1700”. This issue seeks to gather interdisciplinary scholarship that explores how the divine was envisioned, experienced, and embodied through a wide array of artistic expressions across cultures and religious traditions during a period of significant transformation in global history.

From sacred architecture to ceremonial dance, from illuminated manuscripts to ritual performance, between 1200 and 1700, diverse communities worldwide created powerful works that gave form to spiritual ideals and devotional practices. These "divine visions" took many forms—images, spaces, movements, and sounds—and served a range of purposes, from personal meditation to public spectacle, from imperial legitimation to subversive resistance.

This Special Issue will significantly enrich existing scholarship by bridging disciplinary divides and expanding the geographical and cultural scope of studies on devotional art and iconography between 1200 and 1700. While previous literature has often treated sacred art within the confines of specific traditions—such as European Christian iconography, Islamic aniconism, or South Asian temple art—this issue offers a comparative, cross-cultural framework that brings these traditions into conversation.

We invite contributions from art history, musicology, performance studies, architecture, design history, religious and gender studies, visual culture, and adjacent fields. We seek essays that analyze devotional art and iconography in their various media and contexts—works created for devotion, through devotion, or about devotion—and that consider how these expressions mediated relationships between the human and the divine.

By foregrounding materiality, performativity, and sensory experience, the issue builds upon but also moves beyond formalist or iconographic approaches that have historically dominated art historical and religious studies. It invites new methodologies from performance studies, gender theory, and material culture, offering a more holistic understanding of how the divine was experienced, represented, and enacted across time and space.

Moreover, the issue promises to supplement existing literature by addressing underexplored themes such as the politics of devotion, gendered and queer representations of the divine, and diasporic and colonial contexts—areas that are gaining scholarly traction but remain unevenly integrated across disciplines. The inclusion of topics such as sacred sound, ritual gesture, and multisensory esthetics reflects a broader trend toward embodied and affective approaches to the sacred, and yet pushes this trend further by assembling them under a global and comparative rubric.

In short, this issue does not merely add more case studies to an established field—it proposes a reorientation of the field itself by reconceptualizing “devotional art” as a dynamic, multisensory, and transcultural phenomenon.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor Dr Katharine D Scherff; (scherffk@nusla.edu) or to /Arts/ editorial office (arts@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Dr. Katharine Scherff
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.