Religious visual culture as its own religious language: reading proposals

The article presents the investigation of religious visual cultures within the concept of religious languages, introduced in the area of Religious Sciences and Theology, and included in its tree of knowledge. By doing so, this religious language is considered a language of its own and distinct of textual languages, and which by this need requires an unique attention. In a second and third moment, considering the composition of the area 44 as Sciences of Religion and Theology, possible emphases and approaches of visual cultures are made for both fields of research. For this, it distinguishes visual culture as a language of the sciences of religion from the perspective of sacred languages and narratives, and a religious language of theology in the sense of visible and impactful symbols. In a retrospective, the text presents the movements of the elaboration of this field of study in the area as an investigation of aspects and expressions of religion very little investigated and maps, punctually, its underlying epistemologies and possible forms of application. By this, the article provides an alternative access to the performative dynamics of religions and the phenomena of enchantment.