MANIFESTO OF VISIONARY ART

PREFACE
CONTINUED

      Nevertheless, I have left the words 'a first draft' above the title, because I don't believe this work to be definitive in any way. In fact, I invite other practitioners of our art to contribute where possible - amending what is lacking, advancing what is dated, and creating together a statement that could be definitive and complete.
      If, in the end, this is not possible, and I have only succeeded in sparking controversy, discussion, and debate, then this too would fulfill my original intentions.

L. Caruana
Monaco 2001

THE COMPLETE MANIFESTO
in one frame
for downloading and printing

One makes oneself a visionary
by a long, immense, and reasoned
disordering of the senses.
- RIMBAUD(1)

PART I:
WHAT IS VISIONARY ART?

      Where Surrealists tried to elevate the dream-state into a higher reality (and opposed the use of narcotics) the Visionary artist uses all means at his disposal - even at great risk to himself - to access different states of consciousness and expose the resulting vision. Art of the Visionary attempts to show what lies beyond the boundary of our sight. Through dream, trance, or other altered states, the artist attempts to see the unseen - attaining a visionary state that transcends our regular modes of perception. The task awaiting him, thereafter, is to communicate his vision in a form recognizable to 'everyday sight'.
      The history of Visionary art is characterized by the attempt to find a new visual language - a language that may overcome the inherent contradiction (of seeing what cannot be seen) and express in visual form the 'supra-visual' or, as we might say in French, le 'sur-visuel'. In such a language, the images of art, myth, and dream interfuse, different cultural symbols combine, and new forms are found so as to express the resulting