Spiritual Currents and Manifest Destiny in the Art of Hiram Powers

• Autores: Charles Colbert
• Localización: Art bulletin, ISSN 0004-3079, Vol. 82, Nº 3, 2000, págs. 529-543
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article seeks to delineate the influence of spiritualism and Swedenborgianism on the work of Hiram Powers. In examining how these faiths guided his response to dreams, visions, premonitions, Mesmerism, folk customs, and childhood experiences, we come to realize that Powers’s statues were more immediately engaged in the current issues of American culture than hitherto realized. This is especially true of his California (1850-57), in which he attempted to express doctrines associated with American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny in terms of ideals associated with the vitalistic religions the artist had embraced.