Ocean State Libraries

"An Earthy Entanglement with Spirituality offers compelling perspectives on literature and art whose common ground lies in their diverse evocations of the human spirit. Contributors consider the over-arching inquiry broadly, applying distinct critical and theoretical approaches to diverse primary sources, including poetry of various genres and periods, Shakespearean drama and contemporary theater, nineteenth-century painting, Italian Renaissance sculpture,...

At the turn of the century, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) created a body of work that left visible reality behind, exploring the radical possibilities of abstraction years before Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, or Piet Mondrian, acknowledged fathers of twentieth-century abstraction. Like many of her contemporaries, af Klint was interested in the invisible relationships that scientists at the turn of the century were discovering shape...

"Abstract paintings were being produced even before Kandinsky. Completely independently from each other, Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884) in England, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) in Sweden and Emma Kunz (1892-1963) in Switzerland developed an individual, abstract pictorial language. What they had in common was a desire to make visible the laws of nature, the intellect and the supernatural. Their works are being presented side by side for the first time...