Gods and Rituals

Man, human from the beginning has sought to control the elements that live and grow around him, Death, afterlife, motherhood, animals, rain, wind or day and night have traditionally caused humans to want to dominate them to control the hidden forces that drive their activity. The unknown has chosen to create a world of mysterious people of natural deities aimed at establishing a correct universal harmony. Inside each man or woman has existed and exists a desire to dominate any activity that presents itself. 

Art in its different manifestations has come as a faithful reflection of beliefs, of imagination or abstraction of the divine. The men and women that inhabited the caves of Altamira portrayed on the walls distinct animal shapes, ignoring the decorative aspects. They wanted to show their possession and power over the animals. In the African culture the fetish aspect embodies the virtues and vices of the society to which it belongs, its metallic shapes and add-ons seek to possess, reflect ideas and informal concepts that escape the human mind. The carvings of Christ or medieval virgins were the center of the prayers and speeches of men and women who saw in them the way towards to salvation. All of them were focused on the art work involving the material nature of the divine which they were heading towards.  

Societies of every age have felt this same necessity, but its artistic reflection or craftsmanship has taken place in the most varied forms and beliefs that have been reflected in the art as the same transmitter. The religious art and objects that the different religions have generated in the environment to religion have considerable differences in aesthetic appearances, but all of them remain on the substrate of the same sense of reflection, of identification and even similarities that little by little we will discover.

This exhibition tells the story of more than 100 works of ancient art, prehispanic art, African art, Asian art and Spanish religious art, of the above mentioned cultures, objects such as masks, canvases, terracotta, scarabs, sculptures, paintings or drawings that the visitors will travel in time to understand the beliefs rooted in the community of ancient and modern societies.