Ralf van Bühren (born 3 February 1962) is a Germanart historian,architectural historian,church historian, and theologian.He is professor of art history at the School of Church Communications at thePontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, and also lecturing at thePontificia Università Gregoriana. His courses onSacred Art and Architecture in Rome are open to students of US universities with campus in Rome.

His research and teaching specialize on the History ofChristian Art andArchitecture in general, as well as onVisual Studies,biblicaliconography, on therhetorics and visual communication ofsacred art, on the liturgical space after theSecond Council of Nicaea (787), theCouncil of Trent (1545‒1563) and theVatican Council II (1962‒1965), onReligious Tourism, and on thepastoral concern for contemporary artists in particular.

Ralf van Bühren was born inBad Kreuznach. At the Max-Planck-Gymnasium inTrier, he finished his secondary school education in 1982. Between 1984 and 1991 van Bühren studiedArt history at theUniversity of Trier and theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich. In Munich in 1988 he converted to theRoman Catholic Church.^[1]

In 1994 he received the PhD inArt history at theUniversity of Cologne. His dissertation was published in 1998 asThe 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]

Between 1992 and 1995 van Bühren worked as pedagogical assistant in theMuseumsdienst Köln^[3] at theWallraf-Richartz Museum andMuseum Ludwig in Cologne, in thedata processing service of theBildarchiv Foto Marburg, and as freelance collaborator in theDomforum Köln at theCologne Cathedral and theromanesque churches of Cologne.

From 1996 to 1998 he was chief copy Editor at the German publishing houseVerlag Schnell & Steiner inRegensburg, 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]

In 2006 van Bühren was awarded the doctorate degree in Theology at thePontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. The dissertation he published in 2008 in the seriesKonziliengeschichte^[5] (ed. byWalter Brandmüller) asArt and Church in the 20th century. The reception of the Second Vatican Council. The prologue has written Friedhelm Hofmann,Bishop of Würzburg and at that time a member of thePontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church as well as of the Commission for Science and Culture of theGerman Bishops' Conference.

Since 2006 van Bühren is teachingArt History as professor at thePontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. The focus of his research and his lectures at the School of Church Communications is onArt and Architecture as Communication Media, at the School of Theology onLiturgical Art from Antiquity to the Present, including its implications fortheology andChurch history. At many universities, these subjects do not rate among the required courses within theteaching program of the studies ofCatholic theology, although theSecond Vatican Council asked to study the history and principles ofChristian art.^[6] The Pontifical University of Santa Croce includes these issues in its teaching program of theological studies, also in communication studies.^[7]

From 2014 to 2022 he was consultant to thePontifical Council for Culture. Since 2014, he is editorial board member of the peer-reviewed journalChurch, Communication and Culture, edited by Santa Croce's School of Communications and published byRoutledge (Taylor & Francis Group). Recently, van Bühren's communication studies explain the importance ofart history forReligious Tourism,cultural journalism, religiouscorrespondents and Churchmedia relations.^[8]

His current lectures include courses onChristian 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 theMedieval 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).

• History ofChristian Art
• Liturgical Art
• Rhetoric and Art
• Art History andVisual Communication
• BiblicalIconography
• Art and Church in the 20th and 21st Centuries

• The invisible divine in the history of art. Is Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) still relevant for decoding Christian iconography?, together with Maciej Jan Jasiński, inChurch, Communication and Culture 9 (2024), pp. 1–36. DOI: 10.1080/23753234.2024.2322546.
• Revelation in the Visual Arts, inThe 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 –READ ONLINE
• Tourism, religious identity and cultural heritage, special issue edited together with Lorenzo Cantoni and Silvia De Ascaniis, inChurch, Communication and Culture 3 (2018), pp. 195–418
• Caravaggio's 'Seven Works of Mercy' in Naples. The relevance of art history to cultural journalism, inChurch, Communication and Culture 2 (2017), pp. 63–87
• 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,ISBN 978-9968-41-216-2,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,ISBN 978-3-8375-0356-2
• 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,ISBN 978-3-9810376-5-4
• 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,ISBN 978-3-506-76388-4,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,ISBN 3-487-10319-2,English summary

• Faculty website of Ralf van Bühren at thePontificia Università della Santa Croce, Rome
• Ralf van Bühren on the research paper platformAcademia.edu
• Ralf van Bühren on the academic networkResearchGate
• «Academic storytelling», account of Ralf van Bühren atInstagram
• Art historical texts and news by Ralf van Bühren atTwitter (after 2023 known asX)

• 1962 births
• Living people
• LMU Munich alumni
• University of Cologne alumni
• Pontifical University of the Holy Cross alumni
• German art historians
• German architectural historians
• Communication theorists
• Contemporary historians
• Historians of Germany
• Historians of the Catholic Church
• Historians of Christianity
• 20th-century German Catholic theologians
• 21st-century German Catholic theologians
• Converts to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism
• German male non-fiction writers
• German historians of religion
• Academic staff of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross

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