Since the dawn of time creative people have relied on their emotions as inspiration to create great works of art. Whether that emotion is one of happiness or anger, drawn on a cave wall or hung in a museum, the only true function of art is to take an artist’s inner-thoughts and cultivate them into a tangible concept for another’s musing.

For centuries artistic work has been a reflection of the religious beliefs of the time. As such, many major historical crises have brought with them apocalyptic interpretations into society.

Different explanations of religion, most significantly the biblical Book of Revelation in the New Testament, have been used to expand the notion that the end of humanity is near.

“There are two basic theories on that book,” says Hector Avalos, associate professor of religious studies. “One is that it is the most powerful revenge book in history. It’s the critical interpretation that says this is what will happen to the Roman Empire when the Christians defeat them.”

The second, Avalos says, is the modern or fundamentalist approach.

“The interpretation that this book tells is of coming or current events,” he says. “We saw it in the year 1000 because of the millennium, at the beginning of the 1900s and when World War I and World War II began.”

Contemporary events have once again made the apocalypse relevant. Terrorist acts, and in return America’s war on terrorism, have caused dialogue of “the end” to once more appear in various social circles.

“Before Sept. 11, postmodern art had an element of irony to it. It was a take on Andy Warhol’s pop-culture movement, where the commercialism of our culture was sort of mocked,” says Dennis Raverty, assistant professor of art and design. “I was just in New York a little while ago, and it seems that movement isn’t appropriate any more, at least not there. Now it seems to have moved more towards an elegaic quality that resonates with time.”

Raverty says it is too early to tell if modern terrorism will have the same type of affect on society as past wars because of how accustomed the world has become to tragic imagery.

“In World War I the society experienced a different form of wars. There were the first civilian attacks,” he says. ” The Darwinian concept gets misused a lot, but the idea of survival of the fittest was very prominent in society and art then.”

For two thousand years people have used the prophetic books of the Old Testaments and other literature to address their personal truths. As recent incidents of terrorist activity are unfolding each day, giving another breath to an old subject, society’s tendency to explain life – and death – through art lives on.