Across time and cultures, religion has inspired artists to make works of art both grand and intimate. For centuries, religion was the biggest driver for art creation in the western world—the Catholic Church sponsored the creation of grand works of architecture, monumental sculpture, and some of the great paintings of western art history. Artists like Titian and Michelangelo filled the interior of churches with painted and carved scenes from the Old and New Testaments, endowing the biblical figures with heroic and, at times, nubile and erotic bodies. Individual and government patrons, too, commissioned works of religious art to honor saints and other venerated figures, to placate God, and to show for all to see how devout they were. In Islam, artists produced a rich visual culture through the use of geometric forms and elegant calligraphy. Buddhist art often takes the form of representations of the Buddha or lower religious figures. Buddhist artists follow in the centuries-long tradition of creating mandalas and stupas—both aids to the practice of the religion.

Today, art dealing with religious subjects is as likely to be irreverent or critical as devout. Al Farrow makes his series of reliquary sculptures, which take the form of religious objects or buildings, out of metal reclaimed from machine guns and casings. He hopes to draw attention to the divide between the peace religious institutions preach and the violence he sees them as supporting. Other artists, like Andy Warhol in his Saint Apollonia, Full Suite (1984), refer to the rich history of religious iconography that has come before. Other artists dealing with religious subject matter in their work include Jane Dickson, April Gornik, Richard Bosman, David Hammons, and Nicholas Vreeland.