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Artists always know what they’re doing: making art or music doesn't involve adhering to a set of beliefs. Beliefs interfere with art because every mark you make or note you write or play must work within the belief systems. However, J.S. Bach was Lutheran, and his beliefs were woven into the music. But that was the 17th century. After modernism, art didn't need belief, or the beliefs were more individualized and agnostic in nature, and still are. For example, an artist can believe in the power of minimalism. Postwar, Abstract Expressionism was very early "Spiritual But Not Religious", so there was a mystical power in the painting themselves that became as enriching as religion used to be.

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From the Excerpt Library: Music I LLM: 

Religious beliefs have profoundly shaped the work of artists and musicians, serving as a primary motivation for creation, a psychological framework for their work ethic, and a rich source of ritualistic or philosophical material.

Direct Faith and Divine Dedication

For many creators, their art was an extension of their personal relationship with God.

• Igor Stravinsky viewed his musical talents as God-given and regularly prayed for the strength to use them. He famously stated that he would have been most suited for the life of a "small Bach," composing regularly for an established service and for God. His Symphony of Psalms was specifically designed to counter "lyrico-sentimental" interpretations of scripture, treating the verses as poems of exaltation and judgment to be "danced" as David did before the Ark.
• Beethoven claimed that anyone who understood his music was "saved". His late works are described as achieving a fusion that replaced struggle with a "peace that passeth all understanding," projecting an identification with universal forces rather than the individual ego.
• Giacomo Manzu refused a Vatican request to sculpt the Resurrection, arguing that such events were too "baroque" and that "Death is purely dramatic," focusing instead on the mystery of death and the Crucifixion.

Religious Education and Psychological Frameworks

The upbringing of an artist often provided the "grid of expectations" they either followed or reacted against.

• Brian Eno discussed how his Catholic education instilled a "tremendous amount of guilt" and a feeling that every action must be dedicated to Christ. This created a lifelong inability to relax, fueling a work ethic where he felt he must be "working all the time". Although later an atheist, he acknowledged that religious voices on the radio were often the only ones with passion, which led him to use evangelist recordings in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
• Bill Viola combined a study of video technology with a deep reading of Eastern and Western religions, including a rediscovery of his own Christian tradition. He viewed the "sacred" as an essential part of the structure of consciousness rather than a primitive stage of history.

Spiritual Philosophies (Zen, Sufism, and Shinto)

Non-Western religious traditions frequently provided alternative structures for artistic expression.

• John Cage applied Zen Buddhist principles to composition, aiming to "let sounds be themselves" rather than expressions of human sentiment. He embraced non-intentionality, suggesting that "everything is permitted if zero is taken as the basis".
• Eno was influenced by Shinto beliefs regarding "Kame" (spirithood), which suggests that spirits can reside in any object, animate or inanimate. This mirrored his "Ambient" philosophy of blending music into the landscape without a sharp horizon between the "musical" and the "natural".
• Bill Viola drew significant inspiration from the Sufi mysticism of the Persian poet Rumi, whose perceptions of man and nature influenced his symbolic vocabulary.

Ritual, Iconography, and Myth

Religious tradition often provided the aesthetic "scaffolding" for contemporary works.

• David Dunn used the Shona religious concept of spirit mediums and ancestors in Zimbabwe to structure his work The Lion in Which the Spirits of the Royal Ancestors Make Their Home, viewing these calls as evidence of a "collective intelligence".
• Peter Greenaway filled The Cook and the Thief with Christian iconography, such as a character being placed in a "Deposition" pose like Christ being removed from the cross. He also utilized symbols like Eden, Noah’s Ark, and characters representing "the satanic figure".
• Symmetry and Blasphemy: In Islamic carpet weaving, a deliberate fault was often woven into symmetrical patterns because perfect symmetry was considered an imitation of God and thus an act of blasphemy.

Religion as a Space for Counter-Culture

In some contexts, religion provided a language for expressing truths that secular systems suppressed.

• Post-Soviet Russia: Artists in Russia found religion to have a unique charisma as a voice of opposition and the only place where thoughts that did not fit "dialectical materialism" were permitted. This led to a resurgence of the Orthodox Church and music that Eno described as "transcendentally fabulous," providing a world people actually "want to inhabit".