One reason the Sistine Chapel in Rome is so venerated is that it represents one of the occasions when art did not lose out to religion when the two came together. Though religious constraints sometimes force artists to rise to the occasion -- as with Islamic art in which rich Arabesque patterns replace the outlawed depictions of the human form -- often these two expressions of the human spirit are at loggerheads. Witness the early Christians who willfully destroyed much of Greek and Roman classical art.
But religion is much like art in that it can change the way reality is viewed -- as the latest exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Saitama makes clear.
"Mandalas: Deities of Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhism" may seem a strange exhibition for a modern art museum, but as curator Hisako Okoshi explains, just because the style is ancient, doesn't mean the art is. "We decided to hold this exhibition here because the art is not old," Okoshi says. "We see it as something with contemporary relevance."