In 1994 he received the PhD in
Art history at the
University of Cologne. His dissertation was published in 1998 as The works of mercy in art from the 12th to the 18th centuries. Iconographic changes caused by the early modern reception of rhetorics. The study explores art theory and rhetorics as driving forces for the persuasive mode in early modern art.[2]
From 1996 to 1998 he was chief copy Editor at the German publishing house Verlag Schnell & Steiner in
Regensburg, whose founders (Hugo Schnell, Johannes Steiner) in 1934 invented the small-sized type of art guidebooks (“Kleine Kunstführer“), which today are produced million times.[4]
Since 2006 van Bühren is teaching
Art History as professor at the
Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. The focus of his research and his lectures at the School of Church Communications is on Art and Architecture as Communication Media, at the School of Theology on Liturgical Art from Antiquity to the Present, including its implications for
theology and
Church history. At many universities, these subjects do not rate among the required courses within the
teaching program of the studies of
Catholic theology, although the
Second Vatican Council asked to study the history and principles of
Christian art.[6] The Pontifical University of Santa Croce includes these issues in its teaching program of theological studies, also in communication studies.[7]
His current lectures include courses on Christian Art and Architecture in Rome. From Antiquity to the Present (in English), open to students of US universities with campus in Rome.[9] These courses intersperse classroom sessions with site visits. Students are encouraged to combine both the visual and contextual analysis of artworks.[10]
Ralf van Bühren is a member of the
Medieval Academy of America (Cambridge, MA), the International Center of Medieval Art (New York), the International Society for Research on the History of the Councils (Vienna, Rome and Bamberg; “Internationale Gesellschaft für Konziliengeschichtsforschung") and the Görres Society (Roman Institute).
Revelation in the Visual Arts, in The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation, ed. by Balázs M. Mezei, Francesca Murphy and Kenneth Oakes, New York / Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 622–640 –
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Contemporary Popes and Artists. Paradigms of Communication after the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), in: Church Communications. Faces, People, Stories. Proceedings of the 8th Professional Seminar for Church Communications Offices on 16–18 April 2012 at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, ed. by Alfonso Bailly-Baillière and Jorge Milàn Fitera, Roma 2014, pp. 227–234
[1] (PDF file)
Los Papas y los artistas modernos. La renovación de la actividad pastoral con los artistas después del Concilio Vaticano II (1962–1965), San José (Costa Rica): Ediciones Promesa 2012,
ISBN978-9968-41-216-2,
English summary
Papst Benedikt XVI. im Dialog mit Künstlern. Zur pastoralen Bedeutung des Künstlertreffens in der Sixtinischen Kapelle am 21. November 2009 im Kontext der modernen Kirchengeschichte, in: Annales theologici 25, 2011, pp. 305–315 –
Download full text (PDF file)
Moderner Kirchenbau als Bedeutungsarchitektur. Die Lichtkonzeption Dominikus Böhms (1880–1955) als Ausdruck einer mystagogischen Raumidee, in: »Liturgie als Bauherr«? Moderne Sakralarchitektur und ihre Ausstattung zwischen Funktion und Form, ed. by Hans Körner and Jürgen Wiener, Essen: Klartext Verlag 2010, pp. 241–256,
ISBN978-3-8375-0356-2
Spiritualität des Irdischen. Die weltanschauliche Botschaft im Werk von Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), in: Sakralität und Moderne, ed. by Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, Dorfen (Munich): Hawel Verlag 2010, pp. 197–230,
ISBN978-3-9810376-5-4
Paul VI. und die Kunst. Die Bedeutung des Montini-Pontifikates für die Erneuerung der Künstlerpastoral nach dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, in: Forum Katholische Theologie 24, 2008, pp. 266–290
Kunst und Kirche im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Rezeption des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Konziliengeschichte, Reihe B: Untersuchungen), Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh 2008,
ISBN978-3-506-76388-4,
English summary and reviews
Die Werke der Barmherzigkeit in der Kunst des 12.–18. Jahrhunderts. Zum Wandel eines Bildmotivs vor dem Hintergrund neuzeitlicher Rhetorikrezeption (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, vol. 115), Hildesheim / Zürich / New York: Georg Olms Verlag 1998,
ISBN3-487-10319-2,
English summary
^Cf. the bibliographical list of the entire project Konziliengeschichte ('History of the Councils') at the homepage of the
University of Bamberg and the magazine
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum (there also a
brief overview of the research project Konziliengeschichte).
^Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 December 1963, no. 129; cf.
Karl Lehmann, Die Welt im Spiegel der Kunst als Herausforderung für Kirche und Theologie, in: Religion aus Malerei? Kunst der Gegenwart als theologische Aufgabe, ed. by Reinhard Hoeps, Paderborn 2005, pp. 15–28 (here p. 26); Ralf van Bühren, Kunst und Kirche im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Rezeption des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils, Paderborn 2008, pp. 249, 367–372, 526–532.
^Cf. Ralf van Bühren, Weltkirche und Universalität. Neue Projekte an der Päpstlichen Universität vom Heiligen Kreuz in Rom, in: Die Tagespost 21 July 2011, p. 7
– OnlineArchived 4 March 2016 at the
Wayback Machine (PDF file).