International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

E-ISSN: 2582-2160   •   Impact Factor: 9.24

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Volume 8 Issue 2
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European Roots of Kerala Christian Art: Natural and Transcendental Forms

Author(s) Antony Joseph Nangelimalil
Country India
Abstract Christian art in Kerala exhibits two prominent styles: European naturalist and Byzantine iconographic, each preferred respectively by reformist and traditionalist sections of the community across different denominations. Both the styles originated and evolved in the West and was brought to Kerala by the European missionaries during the colonial period. This is an attempt to trace the western origin of these disparate styles and their philosophical foundations. The transcendental forms mostly pervaded the middle age Christian art under the neo-Platonic influence. The naturalist tendencies reappeared again during the renaissance largely under the influence of the Aristotelian revival initiated by St. Thomas Aquinas. Both these traditions brought by the missionaries during the colonial period, was widely accepted in Kerala. The dynamics under which the naturalistic style got a preference among the faithful in general, and the attempts in the recent past to reinstate the interest in the byzantine style have kept them from exploring anything beyond these two prominent styles. Neither the reformists nor the traditionalists have attempted to evolve a visual idiom engaging with contemporary art practices. By analyzing this artistic trajectory, the article questions why Kerala Christians, despite their two-thousand-year-old heritage and proximity to a rich native mural tradition, did not develop a distinct artistic idiom of their own.
Keywords European Naturalism Byzantine Iconography, Kerala Christian Art, Mimetic Theory, Renaissance Aesthetics, Neo-Platonism, Identity, Colonial Art
Field Arts
Published In Volume 8, Issue 2, March-April 2026
Published On 2026-03-31
DOI https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.70014
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E-ISSN 2582-2160
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