Painting is believing

Abstract With help from seventeenth-century religious philosopher Blaise Pascal, art history, artists On Kawara and Lee Ufan, this article sets out a contemporary scenario before digging progressively deeper into questions of ‘painting and commitment’. The article attempts to make a case that painting and painters inform or extend our understanding of commitment per se while clarifying our understanding of relationships – casual and otherwise – between art, belief and commitment. The article asserts the idea that the very process of painting begets belief, commitment and faith, and ultimately suggests that painting, by means of its special affinity with images, might be the basis of our particularization and organization of knowledge, as well as being considered ur religion.