Description
Book SynopsisArt has always been important for religion or spirituality. Secular art displayed in museums can also be spiritual, and it is this art that is the subject of this book. Many of the works of art produced by Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Anselm Kiefer are spiritual in nature. These works reveal their own spirituality, which often has no connection to official religions. Wessel Stoker demonstrates that these artists communicate religious insights through images and shows how they depict the relationship between heaven and earth, between this world and a transcendent reality, thus clearly drawing the contours of the spirituality these works evince.
Trade Review"Whoever wants to descend into the catacombs of the religious aspects of Rothko’s work and other artists will find a perfect and knowledgeable travel guide in Stoker’s Where Heaven and Earth Meet." – Joost Zwagerman, De Volkskrant "Stoker demonstrates how transcendence and spirituality play a role in secular art and provides a nuanced and differentiated outline of that role." – Marcel Barnard, Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift "… finely detailed and erudite chapters on Kandinsky, Rothko, Warhol, and Kiefer." – Anne Marijke Spijkerboer, VolZin
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Introduction Art and Spirituality Introduction What Makes Secular Art Spiritual Art? A Heuristic Model Kandinsky: Art as Spiritual Bread Introduction “Expressive” Art: The Inner Sound Veiled‐Figurative Abstraction Geometric and Biomorphic Abstraction A Spirituality of Inwardness: Radical Immanence Rothko: The Tragedy of Human Existence Introduction Myths as the Expression of the Tragic Colour Fields: Filled or Empty? The Rothko Chapel Paintings A Spirituality of Silence Warhol: A Spiritual Business Artist Introduction The Last Supper: A Preliminary Exploration The Image: Simulacrum or Referential? A Spirituality of Everyday Kiefer: Can Heaven Bear the Weight of History? Introduction The Tear in Reality Transformation and Restoration A Spirituality of Concrete The Spiritual Image Introduction The Spiritual Image in Secular Art Spiritual Insights Bibliography Index of Subjects Index of Names List of Paintings
