In The Call of Love: Essays on Painting, Christianity, and Ethics, Michael Stephen G. Aurelio sets out to consider an experience which may be so intuitively clear while remaining conceptually enigmatic for us: what happens when we decide to risk everything and love? Inspired by paintings of Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Tissot, Vermeer and others, the essays in this book go back and reread Biblical narratives of those who were called by love to love--such as Mary, Joseph, Saint Matthew, the sisters Mary and Martha, and the Good Samaritan. 

Drawing also on the philosophy of responsibility of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida and the phenomenology of love by Jean-Luc Marion, Aurelio then reflects on a kind of responsibility that goes beyond ethical duty and individualizes the lover and the beloved, making them irreplaceable to each other. He proposes that the final but more silent call of love is to make a promise to the beloved--one which looks forward to an unknown future with confidence and hope.

While written for the general reader, The Call of Love is an excellent resource for both scholars and students of philosophy and theology and will also be useful to those in similar disciplines such as aesthetics, fine arts, and Christian studies.