Religion Archives - Page 2 of 3

Prasat Lolei, 9th century, Siem Reap temple

February 11, 2018 Bill Swislow

A Stroll Through Angkor: Prasat Lolei

Visit the 9th century Prasat Lolei temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Monks making the circuit of the tower, Bakong, 9th century, SIem Reap

February 11, 2018 Bill Swislow

A Stroll Through Angkor: Bakong

Visit the 9th century Bakong temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Ta Prohm, 12th-13th century, Siem Reap temple

February 11, 2018 Bill Swislow

A Stroll Through Angkor: Ta Prohm

Visit the 12th to 13th century Ta Prohm temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Angkor Wat, 12th century, Siem Reap temple

February 10, 2018 Bill Swislow

A Stroll Through Angkor: Angkor Wat

Visit Angkor Wat, the 12th century temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and the most famous.

The south entrance to Angkor Thom, 12th century, Siem Reap, Cambodia

February 10, 2018 Bill Swislow

A Stroll Through Angkor: Angkor Thom

Visit the monumental 12th century Angkor Thom temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

December 11, 2016 Bill Swislow

Howard Finster Time!

Experience Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden, site of a one-person creative flowering like few the world has ever seen. Also, see the Sidewalks of Paradise Garden. Read a review of Norman Girardot’s enlightening exploration of Finster’s art and theology. Visit my archival Howard Finster page.

Side-entrance-to-the-compound-St.-Eoms-Pasaquan-2016

November 22, 2016 Bill Swislow

Inside The Land of Pasaquan

Pasaquan, one of the world’s great art sites, lies tucked away in rural west central Georgia, near the little town of Buena Vista. Pasquan was the creation of Eddie Owens Martin, a local boy who went away to live the low life in New York City (by his own account), but came back and created a masterpiece. That Martin was a bit of a crackpot is hard to deny. A fortune-telling ex-street-hustler, he created a personal religion, enshrined himself as a saint and turned his family farm into a holy place. The strength of his vision is so great, though,

December 27, 2015 Bill Swislow

Book Review: Envisioning Howard Finster

Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World, by Norman J. Girardot, University of California Press, 304 pages, 16 color plates and 20 b/w illustrations, 2015. ISBN 978-0520261105. Paperback, $29.95 The prolific southern visionary Howard Finster was something of an enigma. How much of his colorful output was a matter of vision vs. showmanship? How important are his paintings vs. his Paradise Garden environment? Crazy, or crazy like a fox? The flood of work (some 46,000 numbered pieces, nearly all with spiritual messages) and his loquacious sermonizing raise another key question: Are we obligated to

January 18, 2015 Bill Swislow

Short Review: Through the Eye of a Needle

Peter Brown takes on the end of the Western Roman Empire through the lens of wealth and religion, shining a brilliant light on the transition from Antiquity to the beginning of the Middle Ages. He writes extremely well for non-specialists, but with authority, and as he has elsewhere, makes a strong case that the Dark Ages as commonly understood did not exist. While there certainly was plenty of discontinuity, the Roman Empire did not abruptly disappear followed by blank centuries. Instead, as Brown traces, there were interrelated military, political, economic, social and religious evolutions as the Empire dissolved into a

October 7, 2007 Bill Swislow

Character Assassination: Colorful Apocalypse Review

The Colorful Apocalypse: Journeys in Outsider Art, by Greg Bottoms, University of Chicago Press, 200 pages, 2007. ISBN 978-0-226-06685-1 As an outsider to outsider art, Greg Bottoms is in a great position to ask uncomfortable questions that might otherwise run afoul of the field’s shibboleths and loyalties. Unfortunately, the questions he asks in this book are often as uninformed as they are discomfiting, Bottoms clearly wants to engage with artists as people, not performers or freaks. Yet he ends up reducing them to some of the very clichés that he seems to want to debunk. Early on, for example, he