In the 20th – early 21st centuries, the visionary and vernacular environment and architecture became noticeable phenomena of outsider art and marginal culture. Significant part of these objects is associated with various religious beliefs, often representing a synthesis of traditional religions and new religious movements. Spatial complexes, including architectural forms, sculpture, and landscape objects created by self-taught artists and visionaries, in their own ways represent the “personal religions” of the authors. In these unique spatial and architectural “bricolages”, outsiders and visionaries combine symbolism, iconography, and visual codes from traditional religious art, aesthetics and imagery from folk culture, motifs, and themes from professional art and mass media. This study examines an analysis of the visionary environment and architecture selected according to the principles of discourse analysis, which represent individualistic religious concepts. The theoretical approach of the article is based on religious categories (official, folk, and individual religion), as well as studies of visionary and outsider art and vernacular architecture. The study is based on discourse analysis, semiotic, and iconographic analyses, and examines American and European vernacular, visionary, and architectural environments from the 20th to early 21st centuries (such as Ferdinand Cheval's Ideal Palace, Brother Deodat's Little Chapel, Howard Finster's Garden of Eden, and Prophet Isaiah Robertson's Second Coming House). The study presents the discursive patterns and typical and specific characteristics of these objects: hybridity, synthetism, multiculturalism, and the realization of individual religious ideas, such as a messianic message from the authors.
Key words: vernacular environment, visionary environment, vernacular architecture, outsider art, art brut, marginal culture, individual religion
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2024_1_67
About the author
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Anna A. Suvorova – Doctor of Science in Art Criticism, Associate Professor, Professor at the Department of Theory and History of Culture, Herzen University; 48 Moika Emb., St. Petersburg, 191186, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |