OS ANTÍPODAS DA ARTE VISIONÁRIA

a União das Polaridades nas Visões de Luz e Trevas

Abstract

The main purpose of this work is to carry out an aesthetic analysis and philosophical description of the manifestations of light and darkness on the horizons of visionary art in line with the ideas of Aldous Huxley and Laurence Caruana. Based on iconographic studies of the works of Coppo di Marcovaldo, François le Barbier, Pieter Bruegel, Marcello Provenzale, Gustave Doré and Ada Mangilli, we intend not only to identify the representations of luminosity and obscurity, but also to demonstrate the correspondences between the latter and the images of life and death, hell and heaven, particularly in medieval and modern artistic creations. Thus, through an analytical-descriptive methodology that combines phenomenological experience, bibliographical research, hyperfocused reading, a hermeneutic approach, intercultural dialogues, critical thinking and creative writing on the selected themes, we aim to obtain, as a result of this enquiry, a deeper understanding of the union of polarities that is present in the timelessness of the creative process of visionary artists. In general terms, by interpreting the iconographies of illumination and darkening as representative of states of spirit, under the auspices of a philosophy of mind that recognises creative activity as a form of expanded cognition, where the real and the imaginary intertwine on the journey through multiple ontological spheres, we aim to explain how the antipodes of consciousness are integrated into the expressions of visionarism.