Painting a World of Enchantment


Book Description

Bring a smile to every face when you create projects where elves and faeries play.




The Re-enchantment of the World


Book Description

This is a philosophical exploration of the role of art and religion as sources of meaning in an increasingly material world dominated by science. Relating themes in the history of European philosophy to topics in contemporary philosophy, Gordon Graham investigates the idea that art has the potential to re-enchant an irreligious world.




Mad Enchantment


Book Description

Claude Monet's water lily paintings are among the most iconic and beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these entrancing images were created at a time of terrible private turmoil and sadness for the artist. The dramatic history behind these paintings is little known; Ross King's Mad Enchantment tells the full story for the first time and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most popular and cherished artists. By the outbreak of war in 1914, Monet, then in his mid-seventies, was one of the world's most famous and successful painters, with a large house in the country, a fleet of automobiles and a colossal reputation. However, he had virtually given up painting following the death of his wife Alice in 1911 and the onset of blindness a year later. Nonetheless, it was during this period of sorrow, ill health and creative uncertainty that – as the guns roared on the Western Front – he began the most demanding and innovative paintings he had ever attempted. Encouraged by close friends such as Georges Clemenceau, France's dauntless prime minister, Monet would work on these magnificent paintings throughout the war years and then for the rest of his life. So obsessed with his monumental task that the village barber was summoned to clip his hair as he worked beside his pond, he covered hundreds of yards of canvas with shimmering layers of pigment. As his ambitions expanded with his paintings, he began planning what he intended to be his legacy to the world: the 'Musée Claude Monet' in the Orangerie in Paris. Drawing on letters and memoirs and focusing on this remarkable period in the artist's life, Mad Enchantment gives an intimate portrayal of Claude Monet in all his tumultuous complexity, and firmly places his water lily paintings among the greatest achievements in the history of art.




An Enchantment of Ravens


Book Description

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts--even as she falls in love with a faerie prince--in this gorgeous debut novel. 6 x 9.




Enchanted Modernities


Book Description

When the occult came to the American West: individualism and magic in the art of California, from Agnes Pelton to Jess "It is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced." With these words, written in The Secret Doctrine in 1888, occultist philosopher Helena Blavatsky drew a direct connection between the Theosophical Society and the dynamic energy of 19th-century Americanism. Blavatsky and her successors identified the American West as the perfect site for a rebirth and re-enchantment of humanity, drawing those seeking spiritual fulfilment outside of organized religion to the dramatic landscapes of California, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico--places which have long beckoned searchers of all kinds. The syncretic nature of Theosophy allowed for and even encouraged individualism in belief, making Theosophy a good fit for the notions of freedom and personal agency that characterized the American West in the popular imaginary. Among those drawn to the American West seeking spiritual answers in the early 20th century were artists. In 2014, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum at Utah State University staged the first exhibition to explore artistic responses to this confluence of enchanted thought and the American West. Building on this precedent, Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts and the American West is the first publication devoted to studying these relationships in art and music. Through a series of color plates, contextual essays, interviews and interpretations of individual works by artists such as the Dynaton group (Wolfgang Paalen, Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican), Oskar Fischinger, Emil Bisttram, Lawren Harris, Raymond Jonson, Agnes Pelton, Wolfgang Paalen, Beatrice Wood, Dane Rudhyar and Jess, Enchanted Modernities explores the role of Theosophical thought in redefining the relationship between enchantment and modernism, and fostering lively cultural networks in a region that that has long captured the world's imagination.




Images at Work


Book Description

Images can be studied in many ways--as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive--they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us. Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents--human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual--become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always describe.




The Art of Re-enchantment


Book Description

Historically informed performance (HIP) has provoked heated debate amongst musicologists, performers and cultural sociologists. In The Art of Re-enchantment: Making Early Music in the Modern Age, author Nick Wilson answers many salient questions surrounding HIP through an in-depth analysis of the early music movement in Britain from the 1960s to the present day.




Images of Enchantment


Book Description

This original and multidimensional book brings a refreshing new approach to the study of the arts of the Middle East. By dealing in one volume with dance, music, painting, and cinema, as experienced and practiced not only within the Middle East but also abroad, Images of Enchantment breaks down the artificial distinctions--of form, geography, 'high' and 'low' art, performer and artist--that are so often used to delineate the subjects and processes of Middle Eastern artistic culture. The eighteen essays in this book cover themes as diverse as Bedouin dance, the music of Arab Americans, cinema in Egypt and Iran, Hollywood representations of the Middle East, and contemporary Sudanese painting. The contributions come from scholars and critics and from the artists themselves. Together, they present a wide-ranging and holistic view of the arts in their social, political, anthropological, and gender contexts. Contributors: Walter Armbrust, Farida Ben Lyazid, Kay Hardy Campbell, Virginia Danielson, Marjorie Franken, Sondra Hale, Carolee Kent, Hamid Naficy, Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Anne K. Rasmussen, Selim Sednaoui, Simon Shaheen, Rebecca Stone, Chaïbia Talal, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, William Young, Sherifa Zuhur.




A Treasury of Children's Literature


Book Description

A collection of traditional and original stories and poems by such authors as Aesop and Lewis Carroll, including excerpts from "The Wind in the Willows" and "Peter Pan."




Brave Intuitive Painting-Let Go, Be Bold, Unfold!


Book Description

Adopt a spontaneous, bold, and fearless approach to painting as a process of discovery—one that results in lush and colorful finished works that will beg to be displayed. This inspiring and encouraging book for both novice and experienced painters teaches how to create colorful, exciting, expressive paintings through a variety of techniques, combining basic, practical painting principles with innovative personal self-expression. Flora S. Bowley's fun and forgiving approach to painting is based on the notion that “You don't begin with a preconceived painting in mind; you allow the painting to unfold.” Illustrating how to work in layers, Flora gives you the freedom to cover up, re-start, wipe away, and change courses many times along the way. Unexpected and unique compositions, color combinations, and subject matter appear as you allow your paintings to emerge in an organic, unplanned way while working from a place of curiosity and letting go of fear. —Learn techniques for working with vibrant color and avoiding mud. —Make rich and varied marks with a variety of unexpected tools. —Break compositional rules. —Embrace nonattachment as a way to keep exploring. —Keep momentum by moving your body and staying positive. —Work with what's working to let go of struggle. —Connect more deeply to the world around you to stay inspired. —Embrace layers to create rich complex paintings. —Find rhythm by spiraling between chaos and order.