Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World, by Norman J. Girardot
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Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World, by Norman J. Girardot
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The Reverend Howard Finster (1916–2001) was called the “backwoods William Blake” and the “Andy Warhol of the South,” and he is considered the godfather of contemporary American folk and visionary art. This book is the first interpretive analysis of the intertwined artistic and religious significance of Finster’s work within the context of the American “outsider art” tradition. Finster began preaching as a teenager in the South in the 1930s. But it was not until he received a revelation from God at the age of sixty that he began to make sacred art. A modern-day Noah who saw his art as a religious crusade to save the world before it was too late, Finster worked around the clock, often subsisting on a diet of peanut butter and instant coffee. He spent the last years of his life feverishly creating his environmental artwork called Paradise Garden and what would ultimately number almost fifty thousand works of “bad and nasty art.” This was visionary work that obsessively combined images and text and featured apocalyptic biblical imagery, flying saucers from outer space, and popular cultural icons such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Henry Ford, Mona Lisa, and George Washington. In the 1980s and 90s, he developed cult celebrity status, and he appeared in the Venice Biennale and on the Tonight Show. His work graced the album covers of bands such as R.E.M. and Talking Heads. This book explores the life and religious-artistic significance of Finster and his work from the personal perspective of religion scholar Norman Girardot, friend to Finster and his family during the later years of the artist’s life.
Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World, by Norman J. Girardot - Amazon Sales Rank: #213784 in Books
- Brand: Girardot, Norman J.
- Published on: 2015-06-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .70" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World, by Norman J. Girardot Review "Entertaining and insightful . . . a thoroughly researched and illuminating book."--John Foster"Raw Vision" (10/01/2015)
From the Inside Flap “Utilizing an original religious-studies perspective, Girardot opens up the scholarship on the visionary image maker who thrust the imagination into uncomfortable spiritual acrobatics and countercultural mythological intuition.”—David Morgan, Professor of Religious Studies, Duke University, and author of The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling
“Envisioning Howard Finster is a mythological tale rooted in serious and extensive scholarship that greatly enriches our knowledge of Finster and his context in late twentieth-century American culture.”—Colin Rhodes, author of Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives
“Introducing astute comparisons between Finster and other artists, spiritual leaders, and historical figures, Girardot raises timely, provocative questions regarding Finster’s place in the art world, Southern evangelical Protestantism, popular culture, and American history.”—Tom Patterson, freelance writer, independent curator, author of Howard Finster: Stranger from Another World and St. EOM in the Land of Pasaquan
About the Author Norman Girardot is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of religion at Lehigh University.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A Creative, Mind-Altering Work By Donald P. St. John When in 1981 I joined the faculty at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA—across the river from Lehigh U., Norman and I were about the only full-time History of Religions people in the six colleges and universities that make up the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges. I was thrilled to meet Norman, already known for his work in early Daoism and his training under the great Mircea Eliade. Little did I know that this whole other side would explode with its creative genius and crazy wisdom drawn from “outsider art” and finally focusing on Howard Finster, a “self proclaimed Stranger from Another World.” But Norman is blessed with his own wise strangeness, something like the characters in the work of my favorite Daoist writer, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu). I shared Norman’s appreciation for shamans, mystics, visionaries, artists, storytellers and super-weird people but he was infinitely more versed in the scope and depth of these individuals (and others). One cannot imagine that anyone not himself or herself full of visions and “out-of-this-world” insights could have written this book. That is Norman—or a part of him. This book is not an academic tome meant to analyze some “interesting” person but an act of tremendous imagination and artistic expression in itself. Norm calls Howard Finster “an extra-terrestial evangelical preacher-prophet-artist from northwest Georgia” but in reading even parts of this work one is led brilliantly and poetically by Girardot into so many incredibly rich and varied sides to this artist that we conclude he escapes any categories, no matter how suggestive. And Norman shows how he is connected to so many other figures in religion and art that one would not at first blush imagine possible. But that is due in part to Girardot’s own holistic vision and his creative juggling of so many different “odd-balls” from varied cultures and times who turn out to be windows on the many levels of the cosmic-earth-human process (to allude to the vision of my mentor, Thomas Berry). Do yourself a favor and read this book. Take your time. Savor its bits and pieces (for it is the varied strewn jigsaw pieces of the lost Whole that through imaginative, mystical tasting, seeing, hearing we recapture something of our identity as humans and the paradise world once lost but always inviting us to reenter through the arts, myths, rituals, visions…) Thank you Norman through your own creative pen and Finster’s brush for reviving wonder and faith in deeper powers within us and the world.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Capturing "A Stranger From Another World" By John S. Major Howard Finster was an itinerant Baptist preacher and jack-of-all-trades handyman in a backwater town of northern Georgia when he suddenly received a vision (embodied in a smudge of paint on his finger) that commanded him to create sacred art. Over time, teaching himself the techniques of painting and sculpture, he produced a voluminous body of work, including the Paradise Garden, a sculptural environment made of concrete and found objects, and thousands of paintings and prints (all carefully numbered and dated) featuring written messages and a private vocabulary of images that included angels, Coke bottles, Elvis, and space ships. Discovered by dealers in “outsider art,” he became something of a celebrity during his most productive years in the 1980s and early 90s. During that time Norman Girardot, a professor of religion studies at Lehigh University, made frequent trips to visit Finster, and came to know him well. In this remarkable book, Girardot reflects on his long association with Finster and on the meaning of his work. Girardot is an excellent writer, and his rich, hypnotic, and almost incantatory prose is the perfect vehicle to get to the essence of Howard Finster in the context of an extended meditation on the intersection of art and religion. This is a deeply thoughtful book, and a fascinating read.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Read this book, if you like to think about art. By Jimothi DiFonzo This book was just released last week, but I have already read it several times.If you have ever been tempted to dismiss Finster, you won't after reading this book. Girardot makes a convincing arguement that by the time Finster was at his peak, in the 1980's, he was using skills that he had perfected over a lifetime as a preacher and tinkerer. Skills of media and message, myth and meaning. Skills that made his craft appear deceptively easy -- like the work of a child, or a fool, or even a stranger from another planet.Although this is in many ways an academic text, Girardot's writing is delightful, at times bordering on poetic. In this sense the book is much like his previous books. But because of Girardot's many years of friendship with Finster, and his family, the book is filled with personal memories and reflections. It is clear that Girardot has thought and wrote about Finster for decades.
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