A world of mysticism and spirituality
There are a number of artists whose intimate spiritual beliefs have been expressed through their art. One can mention Josef Kalleya, whose complex theosophy of an all-inclusive eternal salvation owes its multifaceted origins to the apokatastasis of the fourth-century ‘heretic’ Origen, besides a number of literary sources. He kneaded this knowledge into his sculptures, paintings and drawings to produce an oeuvre that is deeply spiritual but one that requires explanation and enlightenment at most levels.
[attach id=954214 size="medium" align="right" type="image"]State of Mind, 1979[/attach]
Other artists, like the American William Congdon (1912-1998) and the French Fauvist Georges Rouault (1871-1958), the former a convert to Catholicism, expressed themselves in their own signature way which, however, drew on established Roman Catholic iconography. Congdon’s stylised manner developed from his abstract expressionist beginnings. His depictions of the crucifix evoke an empty desiccated husk of a chrysalis, a lifeless body without a soul. Rouault reinterpreted established Christian iconography as stern reminders of the empirical value of tradition.
Anthony Mahoney (b. 1935) weaves...