The Fringes of Immortality: A Goodly Company and Artistic Collaborations in Visionary Art 1880-1930

Abstract

My dissertation, The Fringes of Immortality: A Goodly Company and Artistic Collaborations in Visionary Art 1880-1930 engages with fluctuating and often intermingling concepts of spirituality that took place in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century England. My discussion examines mediumistic visual representation inspired by interest in modern Spiritualism and modern Theosophy and takes the form of two case studies that focus on the work of visionary artists, Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884) and Ethel le Rossignol (1874 – 1970) both of whom believed that they were the recipients of information disclosed by disembodied entities. My study reconstructs possible meanings embedded in mediumistic images to disrupt longstanding artistic hierarchies that label visionary art as marginal.