MANIFESTO OF VISIONARY ART

THE SECOND PART OF

A MANIFESTO
OF VISIONARY ART

THE VISIONARY
REVUE

L. CARUANA

      The Visionary artist explores imagery, not only beforehand in his dreams, meditations and momentary inspirations, as well as during, while his pencil or brush moves across the empty expanse of canvas, but also afterward, when he looks at his work anew, in mirrors and from new perspectives, noticing how certain images and lines invite others to assemble beside them. Drawing, it must not be forgotten, is a means of 'drawing forth' images from the depths of the unconscious, and giving them form with the aid of the imagination - exaggerating their shapes, elongating their figures, pushing the harmonious relation of their lines, and even combining images in strange and unexpected ways.
      From the foregoing, one may be easily misled into thinking that hallucinogens are the visionary's prime means of image-exploration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Visionaries have, over centuries, sought all means of exploration and experimentation. It is true that, lately, certain psychedelics (such as mescalin, LSD, mushrooms, and DMT) have played a large role in image-creation, due mainly to the fact that they are new to our culture, offering unique and largely unexplored means to the visionary experience.
      But the sources of Visionary experience are many and varied: dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares, hypnagogic images, waking dreams, trance states