(FAB12_1_002) 'Would you know the new, you must search the old': William Lethaby's 'Architecture, Mysticism and Myth' (1891) and the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili' (1499)

Published in the final months of 1891, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth was the first architectural treatise written by the late nineteenth-century English architect and theorist William Richard Lethaby (1857-1931).' Documenting the characteristic attributes of the architectural myth of the "temple idea", and its presence amongst architectures of multiple ancient cultures, the text was endowed with a distinctly historical tone. In examining the motives behind myth, which Lethaby defined as the interaction and reaction between the natural universe and the built environment, Lethaby also injected a series of theoretical considerations into the text. It is clear that Lethaby's interest in the temple idea was not limited to its curious, prolific presence in past architectures, hut also embraced a consideration of what lessons the temple idea may contribute to the struggle of the late nineteenth-century English architect to define an "art of the future".

The nature of mysticism,

Mode of access: Internet.

Mysticism in heathendom and Christendom.

Mode of access: Internet.

The philosophy of mysticism,

Printed in Great Britain.

Crossing the Threshold: Mysticism, Liminality, and Remedios Varo’s Bordando el manto terrestre (1961–2)

In this article we propose to take up the question of the painter’s work in connection with liminality more explicitly. We will argue that the limen Varo’s heroines cross is a psychological one that takes them through a process culminating in a rebirth of the self, and that to the extent they are in-between identities and involved in a process of initiation, they can be considered liminars (Turner). We will also argue that in order to develop this theme, which culminates in her most autobiographical work, the triptych Bordando el manto terrestre (1961–2), the artist needed to find a way conceptually to bridge surrealism and her interest in mysticism. She would have found a sympathetic approach in Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, who turned explicitly to the question of religion in the troubled thirties, though, as we shall see, she revised his androcentric approach. We will suggest that Jung’s writing helped the artist make a transition from surrealism to esoteric spirituality.

O livro na revista: como revistas semanais brasileiras e portuguesas abordam livros e literatura

Dissertação de mestrado em Comunicação, Arte e Cultura

El arte abstracto y lo indecible: el fondo abisal de la obra de arte

A partir de una serie de pinturas murales que el artista norteamericano Mark Rothko realizó en los años 1963-66 para una capilla que lleva su nombre en la ciudad de Houston (Texas), se establece un recomdo por la teología negativa en las tres Religiones del Libro (judaísmo, cristianismo, Islam). El fin es establecer una relación entre la denominada «Escuela de Nueva York» (Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, ... ) y la mística especulativa, fundada en las ideas comunes -a la teología apofática y a la «abstracción contemplativan- del Deus absconditus, la visión ascética, el despojamiento y la esencia de la imagen.

Poesía mística y escepticismo en la obra de San Juan de la Cruz

Son muchas y muy diversas las influencias que San Juan de la Cruz recibió. Intentar demostrar la primacía de una de ellas sobre las demás es una labor tan improbable como empobrecedora ya que una obra de arte es siempre"algo más" que la suma de todas sus influencias intelectuales y literarias o condicionamientos biográficos y sociales. Es posible, sin embargo, conceptualizar ese"algo más" como un modo particular de asimilación que lo llevase a seleccionar y privilegiar ciertas influencias entre todas aquellas a las que estuvo sometido.

Sukupuolittuneita teemoja keskiajalta

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Att tala om det osägbara : Nicolaus Cusanus cirkulära filosofi i verket De coniecturis med särskild hänsyn till Nelson Pikes tankar om unio mystica

In my dissertation called Speaking of the unsayable: The circular philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa in his work De coniecturis, I presuppose an internal (conceptual) relation between the personal experience of God of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) in 1438 and, on the other hand, his philosophy. I hence try to describe the precise character of this relation. Referring to the Norwegian scholars Egil Wyller and Viggo Rossvær, I assume that there is a circularity in Cusanus’ philosophy which appears as self-references (= a sentence refers to itself: A is explained by B and B is explained by A). Wyller finds three phases in the thought of Cusanus (1. De docta ignorantia I-III, 2. De coniecturis I-II, 3. all subsequent works). Rossvær finds it impossible to presuppose certain phases, as the philosophy of Cusanus continuously proceeds and remains open to new ideas. As Cusanus however treats his experience of God far more consciously in his second work De coniecturis than in De docta ignorantia, I find it possible to distinguish between the earlier Cusanus (De docta ignorantia including his earlier works) and the later Cusanus (De coniecturis, about 1444, as well as the following works). Cusanus creates a philosophy of language in outline expressed in De coniecturis, in which he presents two concepts of necessity, i.e. absolute necessity and logical, or reasonable, necessity. These are interrelated in the sense that the mind, or the self, logically affirms the absolute, or unsayable, necessity, which shows itself in the mind and which the mind affirms conjecturally. The endeavour conceptually to understand absolute necessity implies intuitive (or intellectual) contemplation, or vision (investigatio symbolica), in which the four mental unities (the absolute, the intellectual, the rational and the sensuous) work together according to the rules described in De coniecturis. In De coniecturis Cusanus obviously turns from a negative concept of the unsayable to a paradigmatic, which implies that he looks for principles of speaking of the unsayable and presents the idea of a divine language (divinaliter). However, he leaves this idea behind after De coniecturis, although he continues to create new concepts of the unsayable and incomprehensible. The intellectual language of absolute seeing is expressed in the subjunctive, i.e. conditionally. In order to describe the unsayable, Cusanus uses tautologies, the primary one of which is a concept of God, i.e. non aliud est non aliud quam non aliud (the non-other is non-other than the nonother). Wyller considers this the crucial point of the philosophy of Cusanus (De non aliud), described by the latter as the definition of definitions, i.e. the absolute definition. However, this definition is empty regarding its content. It demonstrates that God surpasses the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) and that he is “superunsayable” (superineffabilis), i.e. he is beyond what can be conceived or said. Nothing hence prevents us from speaking of him, provided that he is described as unsayable (= the paradigmatic concept of the unsayable). Here the mode of seeing is decisive. Cusanus in this context (and especially in his later literary production) uses modalities which concern possibility and necessity. His aim is to conduct any willing reader ahead on the way of life (philosophia mentalis). In De coniecturis II he describes the notion of human self-consciousness as the basis of spiritual mutuality in accordance with the humanistic tradition of his time. I mainly oppose the negatively determined concept of Christian mysticism presented by the German philosopher Kurt Flasch and prefer the presentation of Burkhard Mojsisch of the translogical and conjectural use of language in De coniecturis. In particular, I take account of the Scandinavian research, basically that of Johannes Sløk, Birgit H. Helander, Egil Wyller and Viggo Rossvær, who all consider the personal experience of God described by Cusanus a tacit precondition of his philosophy.

Éthéréalisation : amorces d'une contre-histoire

Cette thèse est une enquête épistémologique qui s’interroge sur la persistance de « l’éther » dans le champ de la technologie. De façon générale, le mot « éther » évoque un modèle conceptuel de la physique pré-einsteinienne, celui d’un milieu invisible permettant la propagation de la lumière et des ondes électromagnétiques. Or, ce n’est là qu’une des figures de l’éther. Dans plusieurs mythologies et cosmogonies anciennes, le nom « éther » désignait le feu originel contenu dans les plus hautes régions célestes. Aristote nommait « éther », par exemple, le « cinquième être », ou « cinquième élément ». La chimie a aussi sa propre figure de l’éther où il donne son nom à un composé chimique, le C4H10O, qui a été utilisé comme premier anesthésiant général à la fin du XIXe siècle. L’apparition soutenue dans l’histoire de ces figures disparates de l’éther, qui a priori ne semblent pas entretenir de relation entre elles, est pour nous la marque de la persistance de l’éther. Nous défendons ici l’argument selon lequel cette persistance ne se résume pas à la constance de l’attribution d’un mot ou d’un nom à différents phénomènes dans l’histoire, mais à l’actualisation d’une même signature, éthérogène. À l’invitation d’Agamben et en nous inspirant des travaux de Nietzsche et Foucault sur l’histoire-généalogie et ceux de Derrida sur la déconstruction, notre thèse amorce une enquête historique motivée par un approfondissement d’une telle théorisation de la signature. Pour y parvenir, nous proposons de placer l’éther, ou plutôt la signature-éther, au cœur de différentes enquêtes historiques préoccupées par le problème de la technologie. En abordant sous cet angle des enjeux disparates – la légitimation des savoirs narratifs, la suspension des sens, la pseudoscience et la magie, les révolutions de l’information, l’obsession pour le sans-fil, l’économie du corps, la virtualisation de la communication, etc. –, nous proposons dans cette thèse autant d’amorces pour une histoire autre, une contre-histoire.