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Hilma Af Klint's Divine Commission, Paintings For The Temple : Modern Western Esotericism Embodied And Art Historical Norms Redfined, Hilary Cianciolo
Hilma Af Klint's Divine Commission, Paintings For The Temple : Modern Western Esotericism Embodied And Art Historical Norms Redfined, Hilary Cianciolo
MA Theses
Swedish occultist, scholar, and artist, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), produced a series of 193 paintings after receiving a commission in 1906 from a divine spirit who offered complex iconographic insight into human ontology. The resulting series of colorful abstract paintings would not only alter her life, but also redefine contemporary perceptions of the Western art historical canon. Although all works of art are inherently spiritual to a degree, af Klint’s, commission Paintings for the Temple, is an example of Modern Western Esotericism. The commission maintains the six principle characteristics the construct is defined by, including: Role of Mediations and Imagination, …
Kandinsky's Nonrepresentational Art: Finding Meaning Through Aesthetic Experience, Kandice Nikkole Diaz
Kandinsky's Nonrepresentational Art: Finding Meaning Through Aesthetic Experience, Kandice Nikkole Diaz
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The art world is not one in which much scholarship has been conducted from a communication perspective. As such, this study attempts to add to the very little body of work that exists in the realms of both art and visual rhetoric. Abstract art, such as that of Wassily Kandinsky, is full of meaning despite the fact that it is nonobjective, and therefore considered meaningless. Using a rhetorical method, I argue that by examining the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky in certain contexts, it is possible to discover the meaning embedded in his abstract paintings, in particular his Compositions and Improvisations.