The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art

The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art

Other Books by Charlene Spretnak TheResurgenceoftheReal:Body,Nature,andPlaceinaHypermodernWorld States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World Missing Mary: The ReEmergence of the Virgin Mary in the Modern Church Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths The Politics of Women s Spirituality (editor)

The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art Art History Reconsidered, 1800 to the Present Charlene Spretnak

ISBN 978-1-349-46824-9 DOI 10.1057/9781137342577 ISBN 978-1-137-34257-7 (ebook) the spiritual dynamic in modern art Copyright Charlene Spretnak, 2014. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-35003-9 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spretnak, Charlene, 1946 author. The spiritual dynamic in modern art : art history reconsidered, 1800 to the present / by Charlene Spretnak. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Spirituality in art. 2. Art, Modern. I. Title. N8248.S77S67 2014 709.04 dc23 2014016800 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Integra Software Services First edition: October 2014 10987654321 Cover Art: Cornelia Parker, Anti-Mass, 2005. Charcoal and wire (suspended charcoal retrieved from a Baptist church in Kentucky that was burned down by arsonists). Cornelia Parker. Courtesy of the Artist.

Contents List of Illustrations vii Introduction: The Great Underground River That Flows Through Modern Art 1 1 The Nineteenth Century: Expressing Christian Themes in a Newly Secular World 17 Blake 18 The German Romantic Painters 20 The Nazarenes 23 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 25 The Hudson River School 28 Impressionism 30 Post-Impressionism 36 The Synthetists of Pont-Aven 40 The Nabis 44 Gaudí and Jujol 46 2 Mid-1880s to 1918: The Quest to Save Civilization from Materialism Through a New Art Informed by Esoteric Spirituality 53 Influences 54 Symbolist Painting 60 The End of the Fin de Siècle Period and the Dawn of the Twentieth Century 64 Expressionism 67 Cubism 69 Simultaneity, Futurist Dynamism, Orphism, and Orphic Cubism 71 The Blue Rider 74 Non-Objective Painting: Picturing the Immaterial Realm 77 3 1919 1939: The Reaction against Prewar Esoteric Spirituality 93 Dada 95 Surrealism 98 Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) 104

vi C ONTENTS The Bauhaus 106 Purism 109 Postwar Religious Figurative Artists 111 The Quiet Survival of Spiritual Abstract Art 117 Mystical Landscape Painting in North America 120 4 1945 to the Present: Allusive Spirituality 125 Abstract Expressionism 127 Abstract Representation 132 Mixed Media 135 Abstract Sculpture 142 Allusively Spiritual Architecture 147 5 1945 to the Present: Spirituality of Immanence 151 Nature as a Sacral Presence 152 The Body as Sacral Presence 158 The Sacral Body-in-Nature 164 Making Indigenous Influences Central 168 Architecture in Communion with Nature 171 6 1945 to the Present: Rocked in the Bosom of Abraham 173 Fr. Couturier s Commissions 174 The Formative Catholic Gesamtkunstwerk 176 Expressions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam 192 Afterword: When Form Follows Spirit 201 Appendix: Making the Case 209 Notes 215 Acknowledgments 241 Index 243

List of Illustrations 1 William Blake, Satan Exulting over Eve (1795) 2 Caspar David Friedrich, A Walk at Dusk (1830 35) 3 Julia Margaret Cameron, Beatrice (1866) 4 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Promenade (1870) 5 Mary Cassatt, In the Omnibus (1891) 6 Paul Cézanne, The Garden at Les Lauves (ca. 1906) 7 Vincent Van Gogh, Irises (1889) 8 FranzMarc,Deer in the Forest I (1913) 9 Kasimir Malevich, Dynamic Suprematism (1916) 10 Gordon Onslow Ford, Loving Cup (1980) 11 Paul Klee, Joyful Mountain Landscape (1929) 12 Arthur Dove, Me and the Moon (1937) 13 Joseph Nechvatal, Out Of shadow : disavowel (2009) 14 Richard Tuttle, Deep, in the Snow (2005) 15 Matthew Ritchie, The Hierarchy Problem (2003) 16 Bill Viola, The Crossing (1996) 17 Sean Scully, Grey Wolf (2007) 18 Ursula von Rydingsvard, Berwici Pici Pa (detail) (2005) 19 Kiki Smith, Crescent Moon (2002 08) 20 Shahzia Sikander, Mirror Plane (2012) Further Illustrations: The illustrations in this book can be supplemented by entering the name of any artist and the word images into the search box on the website of an Internet search engine. Scores of colored representations of works by the artist will come up for your viewing.