The Awakening Imagination: Image, Idol, Object, Icon - Hardcover

O'Brien, Michael D

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1951319168 ISBN 13: 9781951319168

Publisher: Wiseblood Books, 2021

Synopsis

Based on a lecture Michael D. O'Brien gave at the Centre for Faith and Culture, Oxford, this essay traces the long history of mankind's creative imagination throughout millennia of expansion and growth-citing examples that range from cave painting to classical sculpture, the icon and manuscript illumination to film and contemporary literature. The author weaves together his under-standing of numerous significant works of art, philosophical insights, spiritual reflection, and personal stories, which, combined, offer a multi-dimensional vision of our origin and our future. Underlying it all is the question of Man's nature and what our creative powers reveal about our true identity as children of God.

O'Brien proposes that a new iconography is waiting for us, one that will be built upon all that the historical imagination has given, but reinvigorated by a rejuvenated Christian consciousness. Humility alone will allow us to find again our proper place in the hierarchy of creation: "In submission to natural and supernatural law," he writes, "to the absolutes, in obedience and prayer, by opening our interior life and the intellectual life to the full authority of the Holy Spirit, we will germinate a little seed. And from it entire forests can spring and may yet cover the earth."

About this title

About the Author

Born in Ottawa in 1948, Michael D. O'Brien is the author of twenty-eight books, notably the novel Father Elijah and twelve other novels, which have been published in fourteen languages and widely reviewed in both secular and religious media in North America and Europe. His essays on faith and culture have appeared in international journals such as Communio, Catholic World Report, Catholic Dossier, Inside the Vatican, The Chesterton Review and others. For seven years he was the editor of the Catholic family magazine, Nazareth Journal. Since 1970 he has also worked as a professional artist and has had more than 40 exhibits across North America. Since 1976 he has painted religious imagery exclusively, a field that ranges from liturgical commissions to visual reflections on the meaning of the human person. His paintings hang in churches, monasteries, universities, community collections and private collections throughout the world. Michael O'Brien lives near Combermere, Ontario. He and his wife Sheila have six children and eleven grandchildren.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiseblood Books
• Publication date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 1951319168
• ISBN 13: 9781951319168
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 52