The Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany, is a treasure for Fantastic painting. The building houses the the monumental painting "Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany" (1983-1987) by the artist Werner Tübke (1929 - 2004). The painting is a massive 14 x 123m panorama painted in the Old Masters techniques. The visual effect of this work is stunning to behold and towers above you when you enter the circular chamber that houses it. Only the painting itself is lit, heightening it's effect. In every direction one turns there are new details to behold. It is unlike other gallery experiences where one may invest a few minutes observing a painting before moving onto the next. It is totally immersive in that no matter where you turn you are surrounded.

Tübke was commissioned by the East German Government to create an artwork to celebrate a peasant's uprising in the 1500's. The scale of the painting was chosen for him, as government officials wanted to out do a similar project in Moscow. Originally Tübke declined, but later agreed under certain conditions. The project took him several years to research and prepare for, and then another two years to produce a 1:10 scaled version of the planned painting. He then laboured over the painting with a team of artists between 1983 to 1987 to complete it. In the end it impacted on his health, and spent the final nine months working with out a day off.

Original woodblock prints from around the era of the uprising were used as reference material, and ultimately the style. The challenge was compose a picture with out beginning or end, where all scenes overlapped into a circular whole. The final effect is like that of Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel, and both seemingly have some influence on Tübke's work. It is an apocalyptic vision reflecting what inspired the medieval mind of Thomas Müntzer, who led the peasants revolt to its fateful and bloody end.

The painting is a comment on the social upheavals of the time, the philosophical inspirations, and the moral decay. Like Bosh, fantastic creatures populate the landscape, and symbolism abounds. The painting is a classic of modern Fantastic painting, worthy of it's Old Masters predecessors.

The museum also has works in its collection from other modern painters who work figuratively in the Old Masters traditions. It is through the link to the Old Masters, that the museum has also exhibited a number of well known Fantastic painters, such as Rudolf Hausner, Heinz Zander, and Beksinski. There has also been an exhibition dedicated to classic surrealists.

A visit to this hidden treasure of Germany will leave you inspired. More information about about the museum can be found it's web site panorama-museum.de.

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News From Visionary Revue:

Just released, the 4th issue of the Visionary Revue explores the complex relationship between entheogens and artistic creation. Ten Visionary artists recount their experiences - the sudden lucidity, the hyper-perception and enlightening visions - each artist exploring a different entheogenic path. Holden, Heskin, Venosa and more… 266 pages, loaded with images and in-depth articles, edited by L. Caruana. The Visionary Revue is an on-line journal documenting emerging trends within the international movement known as Visionary Art.

www.visionaryrevue.com

EXCERPTS:

At last I had pierced the veil. Sitting with my eyes closed, I entered a land of accelerated time. Centuries elapsed in moments. I watched fantastic temples of sandstone accumulate and erode. Countless sunsets merged into a flickering twilight. Behind my eyelids, pink and gold-veined carvings swirled over the pillars, cornices, stairways and domes of ancient, but alien castles or mosques. Fascinated, I gazed at the tiny gargoyles. Charming new elements attached themselves to these: extra eyes, beautifully patterned scales, finely wrought exoskeletons. The temptation to take up a brush and begin recording these details was strong.

Maura Holden

The Cosmic Mountain

Then, the painting transformed. Everything that appeared 'rendered' became absolutely real. The paint dissolved, the frame disappeared, and all deficiencies gave way to perfection. I marvelled at the jewels in the shadow of the wings. These were not 'artfully rendered' to resemble transparent orbs of glass - they became them… deep crystals glowing from within. I was now 'seeing' in the presence of the Sacred. Only when I pulled myself out of it, slightly, did I realize how different 'the vision' was from the support, the painting. It is so difficult to describe, this state of 'pure vision' because, when I'm in it, I'm entirely in the image. It isn't an image at all, really. It's a timeless experience of immersion into sacred wonder.

L. Caruana

A Mirror Delirious

Art and Ayahuasca are both teachers that can reveal that whilst we live on the surface of things, there are yet deep layerings and extensions to our everyday selves. Each being is like a ten-thousand armed, multi-faced deity, such as those depicted in Indian temples. We extend outward across the fields of nature, manipulating and weaving energies in a myriad of realms. The art of the greatest visionary painters emphasises this hyperdimensional aspect to the human being

Daniel Mirante

Realms

Hopefully the domains of what we conceive of as entheogens can be blown wide open through realizing that it is truly the essence of our nature to strive toward the light & spiritual understanding. All of us. So, what can one artist do but mimic the creator in all its glory? Expressing gratitude and reverence for the unfathomably vast and unknowable through our own acts of creativity, thereby fusing Artist & Divinity simply by being in the act of creation, by becoming an embodied god droplet manifesting beauty upon the earth. Beyond judgment of technique or application. The act of creating art induces god.

David Heskin

Art (v.) = Entheogens

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This massive piece by Italian street artist 'Blu' looks absolutely incredible! I am particularly drawn to this image for obvious reasons (if you have seen my drawings). Though Blu's artwork covers the side of a 5 story building and mine are rarely larger than A4. I am very impressed!

Found on ectoplasmosis. 

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News from Corey Helford Gallery:

Corey Helford Gallery is pleased to present Literartistry, a group show works of art inspired by the written word. As Michelangelo was inspired by 'Dante's The Divine Comedy' and John Everett Millais by Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet, each artist in Literartistry will base their piece on a book that has inspired or affected them in a meaningful way. Upstairs, the Gallery's loft space will be transformed into a classic library stocked with titles featured in the show. Guests will have the opportunity to check out the artists' favorite books.

The huge list of participating artists include a few of our featured artists: Michael Hussar,  Nathan Spoor, David Stoupakis and Heidi Taillefer.

Opening Reception Saturday, August 11, 2007 from 7-10pm.

On View August 11 - September 5, 2007

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News from Rolf Knudsen (featured artist)

Blank_Space gallery presents Rolf Knudsen's first solo show: Monsters, Mavericks and Tridents. It's a black carny of strange and beautifully deranged creatures from his darkly satirical pen. The show will include over 25 framed works on paper, acrylic paintings and a selection of mounted prints. Rolf is an artist and musician who has spent the past 20 years working in Europe, the UK and the USA from a base in London. Now living in Australia permanently, Rolf is expanding exposure of his work through the production of original work, prints and other media. His singular brand of surrealism is inspired by the tragic-comedy of everyday life, the excesses of human behaviour, the absurdity of ritual and manifestations of new visual possibilities now being revealed by science and technology. Most of all, his probing of the recesses of imagination is fuelled by an acute sense of the ridiculous. Rolf says that his work ' is a metaphorical laboratory which creates a life of infinite possibilities for the shadowed denizens of the subconscious and the imagined unknown. Negative, violent and maverick forces inhabit a twilight zone where chaos prevails, opposites attract, evil is good and one-eyed gods walk inexorably toward their own ruin. These drawings and paintings are like surrogate lovers, children, demons and absurd confessors. They stand proudly in a pool of metaphysical slush that's on tap from twilight places where imagination and the subconscious fight for front row seats. They laugh and leer because satire makes all our madness endurable and somehow transfigures the darkness inside of us so as to render it palatable'. I hope you enjoy my motley assortment of mavericks, losers, outsiders and freaks.

Join us between 6-8pm on August 16 for drinks. The show continues for a week until the 22nd.Everyone is welcome and there's disabled access. Blank_Space gallery is situated at 374 Crown St, Surry hills, Sydney, Australia.

Rolf Knudsen's Gallery

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