From the 'soft modernism' of Scandinavian furniture to the sleek, clean lines of the lighting created by the Castiglioni brothers in Italy, Judith Miller's Mid-Century Modern reveals the glory of one of the most exciting periods of design history: the late 1940s to the 1970s. The book explores the most desirable interiors, furniture, ceramics, glass, metalware and textiles of this hugely popular period. It features all the iconic designs and designers of the era, with price codes to help value and appraise your mid-century collection. The careers and influence of ground-breaking designers, including Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Robin and Lucienne Day, Arne Jacobsen and many others, are described in stand-alone feature pages. Key pieces (including a number of previously unpublished examples) are placed in an historical context with coverage of innovations in design, production methods and materials.
The dream of restoring primitive Christianity lies close to the core of the identity of some American denominations---Churches of Christ, Latter-day Saints, some Mennonites, and a variety of Holiness and Pentecostal denominations. But how can a return to ancient Christianity be sustained in a world increasingly driven by modernization? What meaning might such a vision have in the modern world? Twelve distinguished scholars explore these and related questions in this provocative book.
This study argues that this previously banned author devoted his entire life to articulating a religion of self-liberation in his autobiographical books, examining his life and work within the context of fringe religious movements that were linked with the avant-garde in New York City and Paris at the first of the 20th century. This study shows how these transatlantic movements – including Gurdjieff, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy – gave him the hermeneutical devices, not to mention the creative license, to interpret texts and symbols from mainline religions in an iconoclastic manner, ranging from obscure Taoist treatises to the mystical works of Jacob Boehme. The influence of numerous philosophical sources widely circulated in his most critical years – particularly Henri Bergson’s Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932) – also helped him develop a religious view situated between transcendence and immanence, in which self-liberation through the channeled flow of élan vital is the chief objective. Miller’s knowledge of these intellectual currents, along with his involvement with sidestream religious groups, inspired him to meld his religious and literary aims into one perplexing project.
