Like so many other works of art produced in the twilight years of the Renaissance, Domenikos “El Greco” Theotokopoulos’s painting Pentecost (ca. 1600) is based on a story from the New Testament. Specifically, it depicts the Holy Spirit descending upon Mary and the apostles in the form of a white bird.

Originally made as part of an altarpiece for the Colegio de Dońa María de Aragón seminary in Madrid, Spain, Pentecost is more than a straightforward illustration of religious narrative or dogma. Through his creative choices—for example, replacing the fiery wind described in the text with the aforementioned bird, or using himself as a model for one of the apostles, looking out directly at the viewer—El Greco is not just giving shape and form to the divine, but also exploring his own relationship to that concept.

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Pentecost (c. 1600). Photo: Archive. Museo Nacional del Prado.

Giving shape and form to the divine also happens to be the focus of “Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples,” an ongoing exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. Open until January 20, 2025, it explores how artists from different cultures and time periods have represented concepts integral to their belief systems, including life, death, afterlife, pilgrimage, and—as the title suggests—the gods.

“Living with the Gods” is curated by none other than Neil MacGregor, renowned art historian and former director of both the National Gallery and the British Museum. The exhibition’s subject is dear to his heart, having previously hosted a BBC radio show of the same name in 2018, followed by a bestselling book in 2018.

Bedu Mask from Nafana, Kulango, or Degha peoples, Côte d’Ivoire or Ghana (1948–62). Photo: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / D. and J. de Menil.

As the Guardian wrote of this book, which covers everything from French secularism to the mythology of the Yup’ik tribe of Alaska, “Living with the Gods is neither a history of religion, nor an argument in favor of faith, nor a defense of any one belief. Rather, it is an attempt to define the nature of belief, the way it influences people and the countries they inhabit, and to show how fundamental it is in explaining who we are and where we came from.”

The Houston exhibition is more expansive still. It brings in art and artifacts from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the royal residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur in India, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to name only a few.

Buddha Enthroned, Thailand (Khmer), Angkor period (c.1180–1220). Photo: Kimbell Art
Museum.

“Living with the Gods” moves far beyond Christian iconography. Aside from El Greco’s Pentecost, visitors can admire a wooden statue from 13th century Japan of Daiitoku Myōō, a Buddhist guardian deity also known as the Wisdom King of Awe-Inspiring Power, with inlaid crystals for eyes. There’s also a red sandstone statue of a standing Buddha, made in India sometime during the late 5th century.

Perhaps the most impressive item from the exhibition is a conch shell with engravings of human skulls from Veracruz in northern Mexico, dated to between 900 and 1521 AD, but probably made before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

John Biggers, The Stream Crosses the Path (1961). Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Mandell © 2024 John T. Biggers Estate.

In addition to ancient artefacts, “Living with the Gods” also devotes space to a selection of contemporary paintings with religious undertones, notably The Stream Crosses the Path by John Biggers, an African American muralist whose work, which blends religious symbolisms with critiques of economic, social, and racial injustice across U.S. history, rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance.

“This exhibition is about how people everywhere have made beautiful things to negotiate their place in time and in the world,” MacGregor has said, “and how we use works of art to think about how we relate to each other. Putting art into that context allows for a different conversation. In museums, many great objects can lose their original purpose, which was spiritual. An exhibition of this kind can give that purpose back to them, allowing a new and deeper approach to great and familiar works.”