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Lot Essay
Visitor is another name given to the unexpected appearance of an unseen presence. Swedish philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1722), a profound biblical scholar as well as astronomer, zoologist, metallurgist, anatomist and financier, was considered a forerunner of Spiritualism. He began developing psychic powers in his youth and a deeper knowledge of the spiritual world in middle age, when he began to access the spiritual world in dreams while asleep, and in visions while fully awake. He believed in the afterlife, as being similar to this life and that communication between both worlds was possible.
However, Modern Spiritualism, as it is known today, began in the small cottage of John Fox, in Hydesville, New York in 1848, as the unseen presence of a departed made itself known through rapping on the wall. His daughters, who first heard the rapping, eventually became mediums. A growing enthusiasm for the new belief started and in 1871, one of the girls, Margaret, went to England where the English Spiritual Movement was well established.
In The Visitors, Leonora Carrington catches the moment in which the presences arrive and make themselves known to the viewers. They appear from behind a curtain to suggest their hidden nature as one can only see them partially, veiled as it might be.
They are about to surprise, and Carrington, by not letting more information be known sustains for us the sense of mystery.
Salomon Grimberg,
Dallas, Texas
April 15, 2002
We are grateful to Prof. Solomon Grimberg for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.
However, Modern Spiritualism, as it is known today, began in the small cottage of John Fox, in Hydesville, New York in 1848, as the unseen presence of a departed made itself known through rapping on the wall. His daughters, who first heard the rapping, eventually became mediums. A growing enthusiasm for the new belief started and in 1871, one of the girls, Margaret, went to England where the English Spiritual Movement was well established.
In The Visitors, Leonora Carrington catches the moment in which the presences arrive and make themselves known to the viewers. They appear from behind a curtain to suggest their hidden nature as one can only see them partially, veiled as it might be.
They are about to surprise, and Carrington, by not letting more information be known sustains for us the sense of mystery.
Salomon Grimberg,
Dallas, Texas
April 15, 2002
We are grateful to Prof. Solomon Grimberg for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.