Visionary Art

What is Visionary Art? The sources of the visionary experience are many and varied: dreams, trance, madness, meditation, entheogens... This little book examines them all, pursuing both Visions of Light and Visions of Darkness. Through the art and writings of Ernst Fuchs, H. R. Giger, Mati Klarwein, Robert Venosa, Johfra, De Es, Alex Grey and more, this new and unusual movement in art is put into proper perspective.

takes us through the inner realms of dreams and fantasy, discovering the strong powers of the 'anima' in his creativity. After his first exhibition 'Sole Imagery' at tal-Markiz Mallia Tabone in Mosta, earlier this year, Chris Zarb has just presented his second exhibition of paintings entitled 'Contemplation', in the corridors of Heritage Malta. It is a visionary journey where the artist takes us along to see through the ordinary phenomenal world into a world full of revelations. In his work the artist explores the world of spirits and dreams and the world of the extremes. It is an invisible world. This exhibition is a continuation of another phase in his art which relied increasingly on his own inspiration and aspiration. In fact, many of Zarb's works show some characteristics of surrealist art; they all express a dream-like atmosphere where the mundane is nearly eliminated and the world of the 'underworld' dominates. Zarb's work can be described as a mixture of real life emotions and fantasy dreams. Most of his figures in the paintings are female. At times these figures are nude. They are solitary figures, representing the 'anima'. Anima is the female archetype in men, derived from the Greek word for 'soul'. In Jungian parlance, the anima is usually understood as the unconscious feminine component in the male psyche. Zarb's female figures represent life with all its beauty and joy but also with all its sadness and uncertainties. Most of his figures seem caught between reality and fantasy, between what life has to offer and dreams. As the artist himself comments: 'the nakedness in my paintings symbolizes both

Essay from book catalog of 2015 international art echibition. While it was Jean Gebser, in his magisterial mid twentieth-century study The Ever-Present Origin, who perhaps first used the term integral in a systematic manner to characterize certain kinds of art, integral art as a category comes in the main from contemporary integral theory as seeded by the American writer Ken Wilber. Springing from Wilber's work, there has been over the past two decades a growing international and multidisciplinary network that is impacting many activity-domains-from business, leadership, economic theory, and sustainability studies to comparative religion, transformational practice, developmental psychology, consultation processes, and meta-theorizing. Many of the artworks in the current exhibition have been made by artists familiar with integral theory. The argument of this essay however is that it does not follow that knowing integral theory is a necessary precondition for artworks that are integral. Nor that knowing integral theory guarantees that one shall make integral artworks. What matters is the art itself and its constellation of aesthetic elements and qualities. To ascertain what is distinctive about integral artworks, it is instructive to consider currents and conditions of Western art. Beginning in the Renaissance, taking off with romanticism, and flowering with modernism, art has been called upon with a new directness to express and engage ultimate concern.

Huni meka, the songs of nixi pae (ayahuasca), are in the language of the anaconda; the phrase is from Ibã Huni Kuin. This music is translated into the visionary art of the Mahku – Huni Kuin Artist Movement.
For the past few decades, Ibã has registered and transcribed the ritual songs and knowledge of his father, Tuin Huni Kuin, and other elders. The huni meka songs, studied by Ibã Huni Kuin, are performed during the nixi pae ceremonies. The performance of the songs stimulates the visions the participants have after drinking the beverage. We understand, therefore, that the songs also create a visual language, composed of images that not are not bound by narrative, as the songs don’t tell stories; it is these song-images that are transformed into drawings, with his son, the teacher Bane Huni Kuin.

Статья посвящена анализу опыта погружения в виртуальные миры современных компьютерных игр, обнаруживающего ряд специфических признаков визионерства (репрезентация эффекта тотальности; усиленная синестезия (в том числе посредством новейших сенсорных технологий, специальных контроллеров); собственная темпоральность и каузальность; восприятие потока динамично изменяющихся визуальных образов; трансформация линейного времени и пространства; трансперсональный опыт (создание «аватара»); переживание смерти и возрождения (опция save/load); диалектика беатифических и инфернальных состояний; властность виртуального мира (аддикция); связь с художественной культурой («цифровой романтизм») и традиционными искусствами), репрезентированных в цифровом пространстве. Это позволяет говорить о появлении новой, обусловленной развитием информационных технологий цифровой модификации визионерства.

The paper devoted to the analysis of immersion in virtual worlds of modern computer games, which represents a number of specific features of visionary experience such as the effect of totality; enhanced synesthesia (by means of the newest sensor technologies and special controllers); internal temporality and causality; transformation of linear time and space; perception of the flow of dynamically changing visual images; transpersonal experience (a player creates his “avatar”); the experience of death and rebirth (save/load option); dialectics of beatific and infernal experience; appeal of the virtual worlds (addiction); communication with the artistic culture (“digital romanticism” of fantasy games) and traditional arts. It allows us to talk about the appearance of a new digital modification of visionary, which is caused by the development of information technologies.

Art is not, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. According to Tolstoy's definition of art, our duty as artists is for the welfare and unity of humanity. This essay considers the duty of the artist, according to individual, social and ecological needs and definitions. Firstly it shall explore flaws in how artists define themselves by considering corruption within the art world. Then by reinstating the artist's shamanic function, one considers alternate standards to define a successful artist by: the artist's ability to heal, compared to innovate. Finally I consider the sustainability of an artist's concern for legacy and socially ostracized lifestyle, in the face of radical social change. Geologist have now come to the disconcerting realization that human beings have so altered the planet, that we have ushered in a new epoch: 'Anthropocene-the Age of Man' (Kolbert, 2012). The population is spreading like bacteria; driven with materialistic greed, humans are parasites on the earth. Are these rapidly evolving technologies; that are changing social habits, brain chemistry and cultural and moral values of human beings, mirrored with the same kind of progress in our spiritual growth? As a species we are becoming more connected, yet more individualistic. Enslaved and conditioned by our screens, we are weakened and day dreaming, taking in more information in a day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. Are we advancing into a new more intelligent species, in control of its own evolution? Or are we becoming lifeless from unrelenting over saturated and nullified imagery? More aware of the world out there, yet more deceived. Caught between destruction and distraction we have bred a generation of super consumers, with reduced attention spans and demanding appetites. Encouraged from childhood to broadcast our opinions, whilst obscured by narcissistic profiles. Simultaneously, the Internet has given the masses freedom of information and an empowering voice. A generation of 'keyboard warriors " are aware that the seemingly unshakeable systems of hierarchy operate primarily as a business. The art world is also a business, both corrupted and insular. Can the artist, aloof and exempt from the system, sleep easy anymore? Is it time that we reconsidered the function of the artist and redefined our aims, audience and politics. In evolution, the most adaptable creatures survive. We are intelligent enough to recognize that the hyper-masculine nature of modern culture – exalting individuality and applauding the pursuit of happiness over the demise of the whole – will, if unchanged, lead to our extinction. The question is whether human kind will be wise enough to cast off this inherently conditioned

Digging through obscure and arcane texts, closely observing and detecting marks in paintings that few would perceive, L. Caruana recovers perennial principles otherwise lost by the collapse of the academy system. Written in clear lucid prose by an experienced painter, these 700 pages distill years of academy lecturing and a lifetime of historical approaches to painting. Loaded with practical knowledge and new discoveries, SACRED CODES is an essential companion to all serious artists – a treasure-trove of insider knowledge, craftsmen’s secrets, and tricks of the trade. Richly-illustrated with explanatory figures and hundreds of plates, the first volume of The Sacred Codes Series is dedicated to The Drawing Stage, and includes: • The classical principles underlying the figure – proportion and the history of the pose, contrapposto and the movement around the plumb line, the contrasting forces of will and repose, to express ‘the passions of the soul’ • The development of painterly principles in the French and Italian Academy systems, including inventio (invention), disegno (design) and istoria (narrative) • The principles of vision, and how the narrative construction leads the eye through the painting • The roots of composition in sacred geometry and ornament • The energetic movement of curving lines around invisible straight lines to integrate figures in the composition • Armature: the rules of harmony and the construction lines for classical and dynamic compositions – root rectangles, ad triangulum and ad quadratum space • The harmonic alignment of perspective with composition in Renaissance masters like Leonardo and Raphael These time-tested principles, tried and true, undergird all of artistic creation. In this volume, two major traditions are traced: the Hieratic style (Sacred art of the East: Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist) and our Humanist inheritance (Western Classical and Renaissance painting, with its focus on Humanity and human feeling). Pursuing examples from Michelangelo, Blake, Moreau and Fuchs, the author illustrates how Humanist and Hieratic traditions finally meet and fuse in the Visionary Art of these four masters.

RESUMO (see Abstract bellow)

Os Estados Não Ordinários de Consciência, ENOC, induzidos especialmente por alguns tipos específicos de agentes psicoativos, como a ayahuasca, propiciam visões, tratadas neste trabalho também como mirações. Nos estágios iniciais da experiência, essas mirações geralmente são formadas por padrões luminosos geométricos simétricos, ziguezagues, treliças, teias e espirais, entre outros. Em estágios mais avançados, essas imagens podem se transformar em objetos e cenários diversos, onde a influência cultural exercerá importante papel. Padrões visuais análogos encontram-se em obras artísticas, desde as pinturas rupestres pré-históricas, o que possibilita inferir que sua produção esteja, de algum modo, associada aos ENOC. Com efeito, esses mesmos padrões visuais são encontrados em obras indígenas e de artistas da atualidade que usam essa categoria de psicoativo.
As mirações dos ENOC são muitas vezes consideradas experiências de natureza espiritual ou mística, já que são sentidas como vivências genuínas de um “outro mundo”, vivências essas que só podem ser traduzidas para “este mundo” - o mundo objetivo, material, do dia-a-dia - de forma descritiva e simbólica. Dentre as diversas imagens que podem aparecer nas mirações, o presente trabalho visa investigar as espirais e os vórtices. Estuda alguns dos significados que costumam ser atribuídos a esses elementos, assim como algumas transformações e adaptações que eles podem passar, dependendo da cultura local. O presente trabalho busca, ainda, coligir alguns exemplos da presença das espirais e vórtices na natureza, na ciência e na história da arte, com o intuito de evidenciar a forte influência que essas imagens podem ter sobre a imaginação, o conhecimento e a produção artística.
Palavras-chave: Artes Visuais; Arte Visionária; Ayahuasca; Espirais; Vórtices; Estados Não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC).

Abstract

Non-ordinary States of Consciousness, produced by some specific kinds of psychoactive agents, as, for instance, the ayahuasca, propitiate visions, treated in this work as mirações. In the initial stages of the experience, these mirações are often formed by luminous and symmetrical geometric patterns, zigzags, latticeworks, cobwebs, and spirals, among others. In more advanced stages, these images can turn themselves into several objects and scenes, where the influence of culture will play an important role. Analogous visual patterns can be found in artistic works, ever since the pre-historical rupestrian paintings, and this fact allows the conclusion that such a production is, in some form, related to the Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness. In fact, the same visual patters can be found in the art of Indians and present day artists that use such kind of psychoactive agents.
The mirações from NOSC are often considered spiritual or mystical experiences, since are felt as actual experiences of “another world”, and such experiences can only be translated to this world, the objective, material and daily world, in a descriptive and symbolical way. Among the several images that can appear in the mirações, this work aims at investigating spirals and vortices. It approaches some of the meanings that are commonly related to these elements, as well as some transformations and adaptations that they are bound to, depending on the local culture. Moreover, this work collects some spirals and vortices occurrences in nature, science and art history, aiming at presenting the great influence that such images may have on the imagination, knowledge and art productions.

W hen the critic Clement Greenberg set about compiling the collection of his writings that would be published as Art and Culture (1961), it is well known that he made several strategic edits. Among these revisions were a few additional lines about an amateur artist named Janet Sobel in "American Type Painting," Greenberg's major essay on the New York School. Originally published in 1955, when the essay appeared again in 1961, the enhanced paragraph read:

Denita Benyshek, a professional visionary artist and cross-disciplinary scholar, explores the relationship between shamanism and artistic creativity through visions, dreams, artwork, and autobiographical stories. Using the definition of shaman constructed by anthropologist Ruth-Inge Heinze, Benyshek demonstrates how artists shamanically journey to other realms, undergo destruction and rebirth, unite opposites, and receive inspiration from nonordinary states of mind, anomalous experiences, transcendent consciousness, and sacred spirits. Painter Paul Cezanne, choreographer Martha Graham, sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and Mande blacksmiths provide examples of shamanic creative processes. This article may support future studies that find shamanic artists contribute to individual, societal, and planetary healing.

Benyshek, D.M. (2015). The contemporary artist as shaman. ReVision, vol. 32, nos. 2&3, 54-60.

The early modern period saw the rise of a growing anxiety over the imagination of the artist and his problematic status as a mediator of the divine. This is nowhere more evident than in works made for the newly-established artists’ academies of Florence and Rome. The works of Giorgio Vasari and Passignano, and the altarpiece often attributed to Raphael that was installed by Federico Zuccaro in the Accademia di San Luca picture the well-known legend of Saint Luke painting the Virgin; yet neither the significance of their new formulation of the legend – portrayed as the artist’s vision, rather than a portrait sitting – nor the historical circumstances that would account for its collective emergence among painters belonging to Italy’s art theoretical and academic milieus have been examined. This essay shows that these works constitute a reflection on the medial nature of the artist’s imaginative vision at a moment when Catholic reformers sought to reign in this potentially threatening side of art-making, deemed too important to be entrusted to the ungovernable imagination, or fantasia, of the artist. Aware of the unruliness of the imagination, early modern academies of art defended and institutionalized the value of the aesthetic fiction as indispensable to the figuration of the invisible God. The artistic image could reveal divine truths under the condition that it was recognized for what it was: a fiction.

L'historiographie établit souvent une relation étroite entre l'héritage symboliste et le monde surréaliste. Cet essai entre en contradiction avec cette doxa et prend l'exemple de la thématique de l'oeil et de la vision pour établir une différence majeure entre la "vision" symboliste, inspirée et porteuse de sens , et la représentation de l'oeil dans l'art surréaliste : un objet délibérément aveugle, rendu inopérant par sa séparation du corps et déconnecté du cerveau auquel il devrait transmettre le regard.

In the poetic mysticism of William Blake, a fundamental insight into the nature of the human individual as a cosmic personality predominates. This personality he calls Albion. In the figures of American poets Kenneth Patchen and Allen Ginsberg this Blakean theme is resurrected, such that it grounds and informs their mystical cosmologies. Patchen’s major work, The Journal of Albion Moonlight is a direct allusion to Blake and attempts to recreate his central vision. And Ginsberg has confessed that, as a youth, he experienced visions of Blake, with the deceased poet reading some of his works to him, which accompanied an experience of divine cosmic consciousness in which the world appeared as a single universal body, with the sky itself as its “living blue hand.” These two Blake-inspired visions hint at a return of the kind of subjectivity and imagination-centric religious universalism exemplified by Blake in the American counterculture.

Resumo: Alex Grey é um artista contemporâneo que faz parte de um movimento de artistas que autodenominou sua produção artística como Arte Visionária. Em 2001, Laurence Caruana publicou o Manifesto da Arte Visionária. O objetivo do artigo foi investigar as relações entre as artes visionárias e as experiências de religiosidade narradas por integrantes do movimento artístico, em especial o pintor Alex Grey. Para compreensão da religiosidade na Arte Visionária foi utilizado, para fundamentação interpretativa, a psicologia analítica. Analisou-se, através dos relatos do próprio Alex Grey, que o uso do psicodélicos e outras catalisadores de Estados Não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC) modificou radicalmente sua vida e obra, fomentando uma cosmovisão religiosa e um estilo singular de realizar suas obras. Palavras-chave: Alex Grey; Arte Visionária; Religiosidade; Estados não ordinários de consciência; Psicologia Analítica. Abstract: Alex Grey is a contemporary artist who is part of a movement of artists who called themselves artist production as Visionary Art. In 2001, Laurence Caruana published the Manifesto of Visionary Art. The aim of the article was investigate the relations between visionary arts and the religious experiences narrated by members of the artistic movement, notably Alex Grey. For understanding of religiosity in Visionary Art, was used for interpretative reasoning, analytical psychology. Analyzed through the Alex Grey´s own reports, the use of psychedelics and other catalysts of Non Ordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC) radically changed his life and work, promoting a religious worldview and a unique style of performing his works.

Principles for the harmonic organization of space have been transmitted by artists across the ages. Looking at examples from the ancient Near East, we begin with foundational geometry, such as the division of space into triangles ('ad triangulum') or squares ('ad quadratum') and proceed to more complex harmonic divisions (Pythagorean-Platonic proportion) in Islamic and Gothic art. The subsequent chapter on Ornament gives basic structures and motifs for the generation of ornament, as well as a brief history of the subject.

Die Ursprünge des modernen Medienbegriffs reichen in die hochmittelalterliche Diskussion über das Sehen zurück. Thomas von Aquin führt das ‚Mittlere' in das aristotelische Modell des Sehvorgangs ein, um erklären zu können, wie die Distanz zwischen dem betrachteten Objekt und dem Auge des Betrachters überbrückt werden kann.1 Gleichzeitig wird die Medialität des Sehvorgangs auch in den zahlreichen Abhandlungen des 13. Jhd. über die visio beatifica, die Gottesschau der Seligen nach ihrem Tod, zu einem eigenen Thema.2 Stets wird medium als Bildträger gedacht, dessen Vermittlungsfunktion menschliche Sehvorgänge überhaupt erst ermöglicht. Dass dabei mit den gleichen Begriffen über das alltägliche Sehen und die seligmachende Gottesschau gesprochen wird, ist symptomatisch für die semantische Weite, ja Widersprüchlichkeit, die das Wortfeld von Sehen in der abendländischen Tradition bestimmt.3 So meint Visio zunächst die Wahrnehmung dessen, was vor Augen steht. In diesem Sinne können Bilder immer wieder als Medium der Täuschung und des Betrugs verworfen werden. Das gleiche Wort kann sich aber auch auf ein Sehen des Unsichtbaren beziehen, ein Sehen mit den Augen der Seele oder des Geistes, das zu Erkenntnis und Einsicht führt. So differenziert Augustinus in einer klassisch gewordenen Unterscheidung zwischen visio corporalis, visio spiritualis und visio intellectualis.4 Dabei ist für ihn selbstverständlich, dass sich die höheren Stufen der geistigen und verstandesmäßigen Schau aus transzendenten Bildquellen speisen, die den Menschen erst zur Einsicht in göttliche Wahrheiten befähigen. In diesem Sinne kennen viele Religionen Visionen als Bildmedium eines offenbarenden Sehens.5

These chapters examine the codes transmitted by Western artists to design the pose of Humanist figures in Classical and Renaissance art - specifically the figure's will and repose to express soul, life-likeness, and the passions. Types of pose are examined (contrapposto, etc), and the route of transmission through academies is pursued. Moving beyond the individual figure, we examine figurative groupings, and how these are to be 'read' through the painting's narrative or 'istoria'.

Was rock art a form of visual representation related to magical-fetishistic attempts for primitive man to have good luck in hunting? Or the result of experiences of non-ordinary states of consciousness communicated visually, related to shamanic consciousness and its characteristics? Is psychedelic art just the distorted and altered result of reality because of the use of psychoactive drugs and specific techniques to achieve certain states of consciousness? Or are they expressions of legitimate states of a psychic reality beyond that experienced in everyday life? Are the indigenous graphics just decorative forms and body adornments? Or the result of sacred visions for these people? Visionary Art - Visual Representations Inspired by Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (ENOC), released by Prismas Publishing House, deals with non-ordinary states of consciousness, ENOC for short, and its relation to art and/or visual representations. The phenomenon has been present since rock art and in various civilizations throughout history until the present day. The study involves relationships between theory and art history, some biological aspects of experience, the formation of myths and symbology, the presence in nature of the same visualized patterns, among others.

Seria a arte rupestre uma forma de representação visual relacionada com tentativas mágico-fetichistas para o homem primitivo ter boa sorte na caça? Ou o resultado de experiências de estados não ordinários de consciência comunicadas visualmente, relacionadas à consciência xamânica e suas características? A arte psicodélica seria apenas o resultado distorcido e alterado da realidade por causa do uso de psicoativos e de técnicas específicas para se alcançar determinados estados de consciência? Ou expressões de estados legítimos de uma realidade psíquica além da vivida no dia-a-dia? Os grafismos indígenas seriam apenas formas decorativas e enfeites corporais? Ou o resultado de visões sagradas para esses povos? Arte Visionária - Representações Visuais Inspiradas nos Estados não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC), lançado pela Editora Prismas, trata dos estados não ordinários de consciência, abreviadamente ENOC, e sua relação com a arte e/ou representações visuais. O fenômeno está presente desde a arte rupestre e em várias civilizações ao longo da história até os dias de hoje. O estudo envolve relações entre teoria e história da arte, alguns aspectos biológicos da experiência, a formação de mitos e simbologia, a presença na natureza dos mesmos padrões visualizados, entre outros.

Published with audio examples in Interference: A Journal of Audio Cultures (Vol. 5, 2016):
www.interferencejournal.org/the-bright-sound-behind-the-sound/

This paper responds to a recent article by American sound artist Kim Cascone in which he asserts that the presentation of environmental recordings as ‘sonic art’ is often crucially lacking in some form of ‘soul’ or vitality. Cascone suggests that it is the responsibility of an artist working with real-world sounds to enter a more imaginative engagement than precedents within the field (and within the wider field of sonic arts in general) have historically presented. The paper briefly explores historical impulse to deprecate the importance of imagination, along with the imaginative implications of discourse around what Katharine Norman (1996) calls ‘real-world music’. From here, we explore the relationship between imagination and sound in two pieces of sonic art and argue that one response to Cascone’s call for an imaginative turn can be found within the idea of the ‘symbol’ as codified in Romantic poetic discourse (after Kathleen Raine’s reading of Coleridge). The paper explores the way in which a cultivation of an ‘imaginative perception’ can be used to elucidate such symbols in a compositional context and relates the creative and interpretive use of ‘sound-symbols’ to both Voss’ methodology of the imagination (2009) and Thomas’ multidimensional spectrum of imagination (2014).

This first chapter from the book Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma provides an introduction and overview of central ideas and debates in outsider art studies, with discussions of creativity, trauma, and vernacular artistic expression.

Modern computer games are complex multidimensional phenomenon of modern culture, bright example of the rapid development of digital media and newest audiovisual technologies. If the first computer games were quite simple with primitive graphics, modern computer games like " The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim " or "Total War: Rome II"  have become full virtual worlds with thousands of constantly changing bright details in 32000000 colors and interactive surround sound. This non-trivial experience of immersion in virtual space of computer games showed a number of specific features of visionary experience such as: 1) Representation of visionary effect of totality and authenticity in virtual worlds. 2) Enhanced sensuous synesthesia of virtual reality by means of newest sensor technologies and special controllers such as "Kinect". 4) Own temporality and causality of virtual reality. 5) Transformation of linear time and space in computer games. 5) Perception of the flow of new information, dynamically changing visual images in games. 6) Transpersonal experience (player creates his "avatar"). 7) The experience of death and rebirth (save/load option). 8) Representation of beatific and infernal experience in games. 9) Heightened attractiveness, authoritativeness of the virtual worlds, associated with computer game addiction. 10) Communication with the artistic culture ("digital romanticism" of fantasy games) and traditional arts. These identified features are inherent to mediumistic and artistic modifications of visionary, but, at the same time, represent in the digital space of computer virtual reality. It allows us to talk about the appearance of a new, caused by the development of information technologies, modification of visionary, which can be called  "digital" visionary.

This paper seeks to explore the visions of AE in order to frame contemporary creative practices that actively seek numinous experience as part of a creative continuum. Of import are the diversity of AE’s visions: they span an introvertive-extrovertive spectrum (Marshall 2005), and occur both in the natural scene (for example, his ‘awakening’ as one of the ‘heavenly household’ in the Irish countryside) and in more prosaic surroundings (often through meditation, but at times unheralded such as his vision of ‘earth breath’ while working as a city clerk: ‘an exile from living nature but she yet visited me’.)

Coupled with Voss’ hermeneutic approach to creativity and imagination (2009), such visions may be related to a series of creative approaches that strive toward the ‘participatory turn’ in which empirical modes of interpretation necessarily yield to the alternative, intuitive and visionary approaches, before being re-integrated as part of a working process within an ‘awakened’ or ‘initiated’ landscape. Grounded in the archetypal/imaginal concepts of Corbin, Voss’ approach to the methodology of imagination is a natural complement to the poetic essentialism implied by AE’s vision and the wider mystical backdrop of his work. Furthermore. the author’s own work since 2001 with music and text are analysed to elucidate the process of working within an ‘initiated’ landscape in a contemporary context. Works such as Abital (2007) and Almias (with Simon Bradley and Layla Legard, 2010) encounter participatory turns within the physical environment, while Angelystor (2013) and Hawthonn (with Layla Legard, 2014) explore reflexive interior landscapes through visionary practice.

ABSTRACT. This chapter deals with visual artworks as media of divine revelation. Since the third century, Christianity as a religion of revelation is using images to transmit knowledge of God and His action in history. These pictures rate among the oldest communication media of revelation. Apse mosaics of late antique churches served anagogical purposes leading beyond the pictorial work to transcendent realities. Placed intentionally above the altar, Christ’s sacramental presence was given a visual form through his pictorial presence. In the Middle Ages, the perception of images could represent the beginning of anagogical ascent towards the transcendent divine. In the Renaissance occurred a rhetorical shift. Gazes and pointing gestures of the figures in a perspectival space draw the viewer’s attention to the stage-like performance of the divine. The Baroque rhetoric of visionary revelations deployed theatrical and illusionistic features. In contemporary history, the issue of revelation in art became frequently controversial because the concord between artistic self-expression and the Judeo-Christian understanding of revelation was no longer a given. Many vanguard artists shaped their work as aesthetical expression of their spiritual ideas (Kandinsky, Newman). At present, the individual responses to divine revelation continue (Lüpertz, Pawson).

I visited the NSW Art Gallery in June this year (2021) for an exhibition of Hilma af Klint's visionary art. I was looking for that glimpse of a world that she had devoted her life to. Af Klint said she had no idea what she was painting, she just received a “commission from Amaliel” and let it come through. Apparently the invisible wants to manifest through the artist to us, giving us these glimpses. Surely, I wondered, af Klint’s enticing emanations are an invitation to us, out of love, not to copy her, but to feel the invitation strongly enough to find our own way to the threshold where the connection can take place…

Visionary art is an art that is not confined by form, it argues that the artist who creates spiritual art allows the spirit to guide them, rather than relying on traditional form or technique. This can result in art that is incredibly unique and expressive, as it comes from a place of pure creativity and intuition. It also examines the visionary art of Alex Grey whose works offer a gateway into a different state of consciousness, where the viewer can access new insights and perspectives. In a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected from the creative body, visionary art can be a source of hope and inspiration.

home features health food culture theatre music books films celebrities Pictures of myth and the unconscious by Louis Laganà Chris Zarb is a very active artist and during these last few months he produced a body of work which enabled him to show again to the public his recent artistic explorations. His third solo exhibition is a continuation of his artistic journey, from his last exhibition held at Heritage Malta last September. The title of the exhibition is Reveries, which explains the artist's dreams and visionary experiences. Mr Zarb's work continues to surprise and delight us. He derives his creations from the intuition of unconscious sources and also inspiration from ancient myth. In fact in this exhibition he is showing 10 new works, all representing some kind of connection with the artist's yearning for mythological subjects and dream-like imagery.

Through curating an art exhibit, the authors find similarities in thinking about different levels of our current reality and how accessing these levels could solve metaphysical problems we are currently trying to solve.  The two main artists:  Oscar Howe and Vicki Milewski both use art as a vehicle to communicate their experiences of different levels of reality and the traditional ontologies which still drive our culture. Informing these ideas is philosopher Mircea Eliade's  goal of solving metaphysical problems through a renewal that includes “knowledge of archaic ontology.”  This renewal will also need knowledge of new levels of our reality, “inaccessible” to Eliade in 1949 but “starting to be communicated” as Galaudet Gallery curators see it in 2016 with these and other artists who were juried into their exhibit My Medicine Part 3:  The New Medicine

Dans l’histoire longue de la représentation et de la vision en Occident, deux modalités principales de rapport entre le spectateur et la fiction iconique ont pu coexister : le mouvement du spectateur vers et dans l’image, et le mouvement de l’image vers le spectateur. À l’absorption dans le champ visuel, assimilée à une forme de plongée dans la fiction, répond celui de la projection de la fiction au devant du plan de la représentation. Un tel mouvement correspond à un vieux fantasme occidental, celui de l’animation de l’image sortant de son cadre, fantasme particulièrement nourri dans le christianisme sous-tendu par le paradigme incarnationnel. Plutôt que de décliner toutes les modalités plastiques de la suggestion de l’animation par la transgression dynamique du seuil, on s’intéresse ici aux représentations qui mettent explicitement en scène cette expérience, c’est-à-dire ces images qui, dans une forme de mise en abyme, intègrent un spectateur en train d’éprouver lui-même cette extension de l’image au-delà de son cadre. Deux tableaux en particulier, réalisés à la charnière du XVIe et du XVIIe siècles, ont retenu notre attention : La vision de saint Thomas d’Aquin (1593) de Santi di Tito et la Madone des Pèlerins (1604-1605) du Caravage. Ils ont pour point commun d’offrir une réflexion plastique sur l’expérience visionnaire et la transgression des seuils entre représentation et présence. Ces deux œuvres sont interrogées à la lumière des débats contemporains sur le statut de l’image religieuse et sur les modes d’expérience visionnaire qu’elle est censée générer.

Inspirado no estudo da obra de artistas como Hieronimus Bosch, Willian Blake, Stanislav Szukalski, Ernst Fuschs, H.R Giger, Abdul Mati Klawerin, Alex Grey e nas leituras dos autores: Stanislav Grof e Laurence Caruanna, eu construí uma série de trabalhos que foram desenvolvidos durante os últimos dois anos de graduação em Artes Visuais-Escultura. Através de uma investigação e da associação de obras de arte, crio uma relação das obras com os fenômenos transcendentais e os padrões visuais que podem estar presentes nessas experiências transcendentes. Foi levado em consideração também a época de criação das obras, os meios transcendentes e originadores da força criativa e a localidade geográfica. Assim como as vertentes, escolas, vanguardas e artistas que exploraram os Estados Não Ordinários de Consciência em suas práticas no decorrer da história da arte. Para tanto analiso o impacto cultural das obras mencionadas dentro de um contexto histórico e contemporâneo como também do elo místico, sagrado, e ritualístico entre essas práticas e as culturas atuais e ancestrais. Insiro nestes tópicos, os aspectos sociais, políticos e científicos que se relacionam com os psicoativos que, são explorados como meios de expansão da consciência além do uso religioso. Há também um levantamento das obras inerentes a tais pesquisas como também de estudos realizados por diversos autores. Comparo trabalhos produzidos por diversas culturas em diferentes épocas com a finalidade de traçar um paralelo entre elas, através de aspectos estéticos e das temáticas abordadas nestes trabalhos. A arte produzida e inspirada a partir dos Estados Não Ordinários da Consciência, é conhecida atualmente como Arte Visionária. No Primeiro Manifesto da Arte Visionária de Laurence Caruana, o autor cita diversos artistas considerados visionários: Goya, Blake, Gustave Doré, Odilon Redon, Jean Deville, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali, Hieronymus Bosh, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Bruegel, Arcimbaldo, Martin Schongauer. (CARUANA 2001). (...) consciência comum que é considerada genuína e boa, e então há estados pervertidos ou alterados. Para Lewis-Williams, menos foco na racionalidade deve revelar que todas as partes do espectro da consciência são igualmente importantes e igualmente genuínas.2 Essa identificação das obras se dá de acordo com elementos relacionados com a Arte Visionária: geometria sagrada, simbolismo, iluminação intensa e outros. Há variados caminhos que conduzem ás jornadas dos ENOC's (Estados Não Ordinários da Consciência), podendo variar entre: meditação, privação de sono e ou alimentação, ingestão de enteógenos, exercícios de respiração, danças tais como as dos Sufi Devishes por exemplo. É através das visões e insights que surgem após ou durante as vivencias dos estados alterados é que surge a força criativa do artista visionário.

The work of art as the result of interaction between culture and non-ordinary states of consciousness JOSÉ ELIÉZER MIKOSZ This essay investigates the poetics of visionary art as a result of interactions between local cultures and non-ordinary states of consciousness. We seek, through brief examples, to draw a parallel between images produced in the past, images produced by Amazonian tribes, and the production of contemporary artists and to point out series of meaningful coincidences between them. Despite local cultural differences, it is possible to observe similar patterns of non-ordinary states of consciousness in the context of artistic works; at the same time, such an approach also brings up a whole historical background to the current-and so called-visionary art. 1 Religious Experience and Myths Experiences of entering into non-ordinary states of consciousness can take us to a world different from the ordinary, material and rational world of our everyday life, therefore many times associated with a "spiritual realm". Some advocate the real existence of such realm; others, however, may consider that it is nothing more than characteristic reactions of our nervous system. It is possible to divide this type of experience into two distinctive forms. The first consists in the direct contact of the individual with this spiritual realm. This is probably the case of many avatars and prophets since the ancient ages, religious founders, priests and/or shamans. The other form is the one experienced by disciples. They "believe" in those spiritual leaders, not merely due to their innocence and unpreparedness, fears and doubts in face of a mysterious life they are not able to explain, but also because, somehow, they feel within themselves a resonance of what is conveyed by those masters, thus giving them confidence and coherence as stated by Campbell: Any person who engages with the work of literary creation knows that we open up ourselves, it is a kind of surrender, and the book talks to us and builds itself. To some extent, you become the conveyer of something that was transmitted to you from what is called the Muses, or, in biblical terms, "God". This is not a manner of speaking, this is a fact. Once the inspiration results from the unconsciousness, and once the mind of the people of any small society has much in common with what the unconsciousness is concerned, what the shaman or the prophet brings to light is something that exists latent in anyone, just waiting to be brought to light. 2 It is very likely that certain myths, for instance, some indigenous legends, have emerged from visions received in non-ordinary states of consciousness. However, in time, they may suffer alterations and adaptations according to transformations of time and local culture, deviating them, apparently, of the initial associations, or even being substituted by symbolic synonyms, in other words, different images with the same meaning: Well, automobiles entered mythology. They entered the dreams. And aircrafts are long in service of imagination. The flight of the aircraft, for instance, acts in the

This work is a discussion about the of visionary paintings, questioning if the works are tied to technical or general values assigned to painting, or else more linked to the expression of the artist’s experience, trying to reflect if what is  seen it is actually a painting.

Nos interesa comprender que la implantación del código o figura de significación resulta del uso, de la aceptación de la convención. El sonido aporta un carácter espacial, rítmico, emocional y expresivo a la banda de imágenes cuando sobrepasa su mero subrayado dramático. En la construcción del enunciado audiovisual a tiempo real, la implicación fílmica puede relacionar cualquier elemento visual con un
ritmo musical concreto, un movimiento de cámara con una melodía, un color con una nota… y tal vez provocar relaciones de sinestesia en algunos individuos. Se produce
lo que Christian Metz designa como “figuras de continuidad”. Estas implicaciones comportan un carácter simbólico con el que se logra un incremento del la lógica y el sentido discursivo. En consecuencia podríamos admitir un tipo de convenciones o códigos que se repiten en la fenomenología del VJing o Live Cinema, y que devienen fundamentalmente de las interpelaciones realizadas a tiempo real entre banda de imagen y banda de sonido.

The Deep South in the United States is rich in history and tradition. Its art tells stories about beliefs of people who live there and the environment in which they live. Artworks by O. L. Samuels, Annie Greene, and Vannoy Streeter chronicle facets of African American culture in the South. In particular, their work focuses on issues of spirituality and religion. Each artist uses a different medium to tell about who they are in relation to what they believe. Their art demonstrates that people from the same ethnic background and the same general geographic areas have different views on religion and express their beliefs in unique ways. Because learning about all types of people is an educational goal, teachers should have opportunities to instruct their students about all types of artists, even those whose works are religious in nature, because these artists have something of value to contribute to the education of all children.