The Spiritual Dynamic In Modern Art: Art History Reconsidered, 1800 To The Present

The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art Other Books by Charlene Spretnak The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World 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 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 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 Introduction: The Great Underground River That Flows Through Modern Art 1 The Nineteenth Century: Expressing Christian Themes in a Newly Secular World 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 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 Dada 95 Surrealism 98 Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) 104 vii 1 17 53 93 vi CONTENTS 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 Abstract Expressionism 127 Abstract Representation 132 Mixed Media 135 Abstract Sculpture 142 Allusively Spiritual Architecture 147 125 5 1945 to the Present: Spirituality of Immanence 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 171 151 6 1945 to the Present: Rocke