Interior Visions


Book Description

Mona Hajj is a master of interior design. Her choices of colors, fabrics, and furnishings and her marvelous sense of scale transform even the most mundane of rooms into a magical kingdom. —Allan Greenberg For the last two decades, Mona Hajj has been crafting interiors that combine a global vision with an American emphasis on elegance, comfort, and simplicity. Hajj's body of work is grounded in classicism yet influenced by the contemporary; her international upbringing—she was born in Africa and educated in Europe, Lebanon, and the United States—is evidenced in exceptional rugs, antiques, and fixtures. Interior Visions showcases Hajj's distinct and distinctly original aesthetic voice. Beautifully photographed projects—from a beach house in Delaware to a John Russell Pope–designed house in Baltimore, from an apartment in New York City to the Embassy of Luxembourg in Washington, D.C.—display a thoughtful treatment of architecture, color, and lighting, as well as an eye for the defining detail. Among the myriad culturally and historically diverse adornments are Persian rugs, Flemish tapestries, Japanese screens, Italian chandeliers, and Chinese chargers. Finally, two residences presented in great detail—the author's own apartment in a historic Baltimore building and an expansive horse farm in Kentucky—demonstrate a vision that is at once specific and inclusive, personal and grand, intimate and sumptuous. Interior design is all about how things feel instinctively, the special magic that flourishes when different elements are joined together. —Mona Hajj




Victor Hugo, interior visions : from furniture to decoration


Book Description

his book is the first in a series of publications dedicated to the study and projection of the collections of the Maison de Victor Hugo in Paris and of Hauteville House in Guernsey, and through them, of the heritage of the museums of the City of Paris.




Visions of Home


Book Description

A new volume from the esteemed architecture firm Historical Concepts features extraordinary homes rooted in tradition and enriched with a modern sensibility. Known for designing welcoming Southern homes, Historical Concepts, one of today's leading traditional architecture firms, is now working on diverse projects across America and in exotic locales, such as the Caribbean and Patagonia. A multigenerational team of architects is extending the firm's founding philosophy--expressing both timeless and inventive perspectives on design. Showcased are beautifully photographed country estates, coastal retreats, and pastoral properties, all weaving the classical principles of symmetry, scale, and proportion with vernacular motifs and artisanal craftsmanship to create stylish and comfortable backdrops for contemporary living. Sophisticated interior decoration and stunning landscapes accompany the architecture, creating a harmonious sense of place. Through engaging stories that inform, Andrew Cogar shows how to reimagine the traditional home--whether an elegant Greek Revival pavilion, a chic Hamptons summer house, or a reinterpretation of a historic Charleston single house--to capture one's unique point of view. Visions of Home is an invaluable resource for those who enjoy the warmth and charm of traditional architecture.




Visions of Design


Book Description

A vibrant collection of the design industry’s most illustrious visionaries, this dynamic reference features hundreds of spectacular residential interiors. Capturing the unique voice of each U.S.-based professional, engaging editorial is matched with lush photographs to showcase private commissions ranging from modern expressions saturated with color and unexpected texture to traditional rooms with classic furnishings and all the dramatic interpretations in between. Separated into five regional sections, a diversity of work is displayed from New York’s sophisticated living environments, California’s coastal chic, the graciousness of the South, the warmth of the Midwest, and the desert region’s characteristic mystique. Designer introductions are shared in three languages, offering a global feel.




Interior Visions


Book Description

Readers visit inside the showcase house, where designers produce rooms for themselves and where potential clients see first-hand the latest in interiors. Includes work of master designers Mark Hampton, Mario Buatta, Parish-Hadley, and Mary Dial. 250 full-color photos.




The Sun at Midnight


Book Description

The Sun at Midnight offers a splendid, easily accessible summary of mystical theology in the Cistercian school. Bernardo Olivera, a master of both the theology and the practice of the spiritual life, analyzes this tradition first in its rich human, biblical, and doctrinal connotations, and then according to its most typical expressions as they are lived among Cistercian mystics, with reference also to other Christian men and women. Olivera explores the rich testimony of the monks of the twelfth century as well as the lesser-known nuns and holy women of the thirteenth century. Throughout the book, we discover Olivera's fundamental thesis: Personal mystical experience is not only the key to an adequate renewal of monastic life today but also-and above all-the foundation, the originating point, of any and all religion or religious tradition. Mystical experience is, in particular, the origin of Christianity and its rich spiritual tradition.




Gnosis


Book Description

Traces the use of powerful gnostic visionary techniques from Hellenistic Gnosticism and Jewish merkabah mysticism, through Muhammad, the Ismaeilis, and theosophical Sufism to medieval neoplatonism, and renaissance alchemy.




The Psychedelic Sacrament


Book Description

• Reveals the secret teachings from the Judeo-Christian traditions that promote the use of psychedelic substances to enhance religious transcendence. • Explains how special meditations were designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament". In The Mystery of Manna, religious historian Dan Merkur provided compelling evidence that the miraculous bread that God fed the Israelites in the wilderness was psychedelic, made from bread containing ergot--the psychoactive fungus containing the same chemicals from which LSD is made. Many religious authorities over the centuries have secretly known the identity and experience of manna and have left a rich record of their involvement with this sacred substance. In The Psychedelic Sacrament, a companion work to The Mystery of Manna, Dan Merkur elucidates a body of Jewish and Christian writings especially devoted to this tradition of visionary mysticism. He discusses the specific teachings of Philo of Alexandria, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux that refer to special meditations designed to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament." These meditations combine the revelatory power of psychedelics with the rational exercise of the mind, enabling the seeker to achieve a qualitatively enhanced state of religious transcendence. The Psychedelic Sacrament sheds new light on the use of psychedelics in the Western mystery tradition and deepens our understanding of the human desire for divine union.




The Surreal Visions of Josephine Tota


Book Description

"Josephine Tota (1910-1996) was a seamstress and amateur artist who lived a conventional life among the Italian immigrant community in Rochester, New York. In her seventies, she spent countless hours painting in the privacy of her home, where she imbued over ninety small jewel-like paintings with the richness of her strange imagination. Tota captured and condensed anxieties accumulated over a lifetime. Her formidable paintings reference myriad art-historical and popular culture sources medieval illuminated manuscripts, early Renaissance panel paintings, the work of Surrealist icons Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dalí, fairy tales, and children s book illustrations into private images of startling immediacy and timelessness. Tota s work cannot be defined as entirely mainstream, self-taught, visionary, or surreal. It is this powerful body of work dozens of untamed paintings in egg tempera and gilding on board, completed at the end of her life that The Surreal Visions of Josephine Tota explores and advocates for inclusion into the canon of self-taught, visionary art."--from Backcover




The Fatima Prophecies


Book Description

I was . . . overwhelmed and reinvigorated by this fantastic journal and the emerging revelations about our Heavenly Father. With this historical book, Marys armies now have a most timely and powerful weapon for evangelization as the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart approaches. -- -Bud MacFarlane Sr., M.I., World-renowned expert on apparitions and mystical phenomena, Afterglow, NJ Once more Thomas Petrisko presents us with an array of prophecies that indicate the tumult of our time and the hidden role of the Virgin. -- - Michael Brown, author, The Final Hour and The Last Secret, Latham, NY Panoramic in scope and profound in content, this work shows how all the major Marian apparitions point like compass needles to Fatima as their goal and crown. -- - Fr. Richard Foley, S.J., author and EWTN commentator, London, England