Religion has used art in illustrative, narrative, and decorative ways, especially in the past.

Early Christian painting and mosaics, served as large scale decoration of churches; the architecture itself was "intended to exalt the triumph of Christianity." (198) "The spirit of early Christian art, therefore - especially figuration - was symbolic, allusive, and it had to express itself with absolute simplicity because its object was to instruct and edify the believer, as did the gospels, the acts of the apostles, and the epistles of St. Paul." (199)

Islam, on the other hand, felt that the representation of human figures was encouraging idolatry. Islamic artists preferred more stylized motifs, geometric themes, arabesques, and animal or vegetable motifs for decoration. (200)
 

The Buddhist philosophy of art is related to meditation and spiritual enlightenment which allows the artist "to rise above the contradictions and impermanence of reality" and allows him to reach nirvana. (201)



198. Gina Pischel, A World History of Art, (New York, Golden Press, 1968), p.p. 149, 150
199. ibid., p. 144
200. ibid., p.p. 178, 179
201. ibid., p. 183