Art and the religious imagination: A conversation with Rowan Williams

Abstract

Dr Deborah Lewer introduces this conversation between herself and Dr Rowan Williams by reflecting on how word and image point to the risk and the promise involved in words about wordless works of art. As a theologian, poet, and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams highlights the ongoing, responsive, and dynamic relationship that human beings can develop with particular pieces of visual art. Such an interaction can be extended when a painting is responded to by another medium – for instance, that of a poem. It is in the transcendence and indeterminacy of a piece of art that Williams locates imagination’s link to faith.