Angelic Mistakes

by LIPSEY, ROGER

• ISBN13: 9781590303139
• ISBN10: 159030313X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-18
• Publisher: New Seeds

Summary

In the last decade of his life, while living as a hermit-monk in dialogue with the world, Thomas Merton created a body of visual art that has remained largely unknown and little studied in the nearly forty years since his death. With this book, Merton's art at last moves out of the shadows to be appreciated for what it is: a revealing expression of his state of mind and heart in the 1960s, and a visual correlative to his mature works of spiritual writing such as New Seeds of Contemplation and Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Roger Lipsey provides a fascinating analysis of the simple and striking images and their significance in Merton's journey. He find in them resonances with Asian calligraphy and American abstract expressionism, and relates them to the influence of Merton's wide circle of friends, which included such diverse figures as the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, the poet Czeslaw Milosz, the Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki, and the artist Ad Reinhardtamong many others. But the centerpiece of the book is the art itself, presented in a portfolio of thirty-four representative pieces that reflect the changing themes and methods of Merton's work. Each is accompanied by selections from his writings from the 1960s that reflect the inward and outward territories Merton was exploring in the period when these remarkable images were created.

Author Biography

Roger Lipsey earned a Ph.D. in the history of art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. A director of the parent company that publishes the journal Parabola, he has written on art and spirituality for many years. He is the author of The Spiritual in Twentieth Century Art. He lives in Garrison, New York. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
List of Illustrations	xi
Foreword	xv
The Invisible Art of a Highly Visible Man
The Invisible Art of a Highly Visible Man	3	(6)
Kyoto	9	(4)
Lower Manhattan	13	(4)
``This Stuff Is Very Abstract, I Warn You''	17	(4)
The Peculiar Circumstances of This Monastery	21	(2)
At Work and at Rest	23	(2)
Chronology and Change	25	(9)
Thomas Merton, Printmaker	34	(3)
Inops et pauper ego sum: The Transformation of Simple, Unnoticed Things	37	(2)
Chance/Providence	39	(4)
These Are Not ``Drawings of'': Interpreting Merton's Art	43	(10)
Epilogue: ``Go on! Go on!''	53	(6)
The Art of Thomas Merton: Thirty-four Images
A Preface to the Images	59	(1)
``Signatures: Notes on the Author's Drawings''	60	(73)
Thomas Merton
Three Studies
Friends	133	(21)
Unlikely Peers	154	(7)
Exhibitions	161	(6)
Appendix Thomas Merton, Printmaker: Reconstructing His Technique	167	(8)
John Begley
James Grubola
John Whitesell
Notes	175	(12)
Bibliography	187	(4)
Credits	191	(2)
Index	193