With text drawn from the author's major work,
Sacred Art in East and West,
and so arranged as to provide a concise comparative study of five of the world's great religious traditions, this slender volume explains how sacred art can be identified by its style and method, and why some European art commonly regarded as sacred was in fact profane art using religious themes. Although canonical art is now seen as having restricted the development of creative possibilities, the author maintains that, on the contrary, its function was to lead men to true freedom-the release of the spirit from its earthly bonds-whereas contemporary art signifies an abandonment of the soul to any influences that may take possession of it.