MANIFESTO OF VISIONARY ART

vocabulary and complex pictorial expression. Each manifest, at one and the same time, a distinctively epic or monumental quality and, transcending this, a more universal and timeless quality. As Fuchs noted, "A work of art is simply a monument to the temporal within eternity. Art alone can confer and transmit to other ages an enduring validity of what is trapped within its own era." (14) In our ancient, more epic works of art, a momentary vision was seen, then seized, and finally set into time-resistent stone, which has preserved its hidden message into our present times. The task awaiting us, while beholding such a work, is to open ourselves up to its forgotten spiritual message, thus broadening our vision beyond its own cultural horizon and spiritual inheritance.
      As European culture moved into 'the Dark Ages', the Visionary experience could still be detected in Viking gold and Nordic woodwork, in the scant remains of objects carved by the Celts: their animal heraldry, horned gods, and rich interweaving of serpentine motifs. And in North America as well, Native tribes were developing their complex animal mythologies through totems, weavings, and carvings.
      Bible covers encrusted with precious gemstones and gold, their contents illumined with arabesques and beastiaries - this was the early expression of the visionary in Christianity. Then, in the stone and stained-glass facades of Gothic cathedrals and the egg-tempera icons of the Byzantines, a new Visionary trend emerged in Christian art - rich in its symbolic translation of the Holy Writ. These were soon followed by the frescos of the Italians, and the oil and resin altarpieces of the Netherlandish painters.
      The cult of the artist had begun. The greatest of the early Visionary painters was, of course, Hieronymus Bosch. Even unto our own day, his works continue to bear hidden messages. So many

 
 
 


L. CARUANA

of his images offer a doorway to a lost paradise (and meanwhile, each era possesses a different key.)
      If names must be named, then the list runs as follows:
TRUE
VISIONARIES		 NEAR
VISIONARIES		 FALSE
VISIONARIES*
Bosch Van Eyck  
Schongauer Van der Weyden  
Grünewald Van der Goes  
Altdörfer Memling Van Leyden
H. Baldung Grien Dürer Cranach
Bruegel J. Gossart F. Clouet
Signorelli P. d. Francesca Fra F. Lippi
Da Vinci Botticelli Raphael
Michelangelo Cellini Tintoretto
Arcimbaldo Bronzino Caravaggio
Master of theTarot de Marseille
Master of Rosarium Philosophorum
Master of the Splendor Solis series
Goya Rembrandt Rubens
John Martin Vermeer Fantin-Latour
Blake El Greco  
C.D Friedrich C.G. Carus Turner
Rossetti David Ingres
Burne-Jones Bourguereau Poussin
Moreau Gericault Delacroix
Doré Rodin Courbet
Redon Van Gogh Bonnard
Delville Gaugain Vuillard
Khnoff Monet Rouault
Klinger Ensor Seurat
Klimt Munch Renoir
Dali Picasso Chagall
*Artists who, despite an excellency of technique, have failed to manifest unique visionary qualities when confronted by a subject that requires them.

 
 
 


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REVUE
CONTENTS

 


EDITORIAL

 


MANIFESTO OF
VISIONARY ART

 


FUCHS
ON DALI

 


VISIONARY
PORNOGRAPHY