Utopian Visionaries Dostoevsky & Le Guin

Utopian Visionaries
Dostoevsky & Le Guin

February 10 2024

After the last post about Biosphere 2, I would like to linger a little longer in utopian realms of thought. These two visionary tales are written hundred years apart, under very different conditions by very different authors yet they make a great match.

I’ve previously shared these two short stories in the newsletter, but I think they deserve a post, so people can discover them when browsing the archive.

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Fyodor Dostoevsky
1877

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Ursula K. Le Guin
1973

Gerhard Riebicke
Ways to Strength and Beauty

Gerhard Riebicke’s photography paved the way for the awakening of the Lebensreform movement in the early 20th century.

Lucyna Kolendo
Corpo Solido

Every day anew I am fascinated by the human form, my body. While looking at my trembling feet in a yoga pose, I wonder what this body is.

Tomás Sánchez
Meditative states on canvas

Tomás Sánchez is best known as a painter of landscapes. These scenes are the sweetest praise of nature and meditation.

Tristram Lansdowne
Sci-Fi Islands

Tristram Lansdowne is a Toronto based painter who mainly works in watercolor. I like his futuristic approach of combining architecture with nature.

Frieder Grindler
Posters 1963 – 2005

Frieder Grindler is one of the big names of German poster design in the second half of the 20th century.

Arthur Schopenhauer
On Death and Life as Dying

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death – the only certainty that life holds…

Jerry Uelsmann
Photo Synthesis

Jerry Uelsmann uses the technique of combination printing to create his dreamlike scenes.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Body Land

For more than forty years, Arno Rafael Minkkinen has been photographing his body immersed in nature. What you see happening in the image happened in front of the lens.

Hannsjörg Voth
Landscape as canvas

I’m totally fascinated by Hannsjörg Voth‘s structures in the Moroccan desert. There is a beautiful book called Stadt des Orion…

Rajni Perera
(M)otherworlds

Rajni Perera paints a vibrant sci-fi universe ruled by hybrid deities, demons, and powerful black heroines.

Gurdjieff
In Search of the Miraculous

Gurdjieff’s teaching combines mystical elements of Sufism, Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism and the Kabbalah.

Klaudia B. Lewandowski
A Sensuous World

Klaudia B. Lewandowski is a photographer and creator of visual poetry, based in Berlin. She looks at the world through the eyes of a curious child, collecting sticks and stones and flowers along the way.

Peter Birkhäuser
Light from the Darkness

Few artists have so powerfully evoked the uncanny otherness of the unconscious like Swiss artist Peter Birkhäuser.

Eric Gill
Lovers & Saints

Often summarized as graphic artist, Eric Gill was a sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker.

Alexandra Duprez
The eternal metamorphosis

French artist Alexandra Duprez mentions Australian Aboriginal art as her main inspiration to take up painting.

Kirlian Photography
The blaze of the force

Kirlian believed that images created by Kirlian Photography might depict a conjectural energy field or aura, that surrounds all living things.

Mati Klarwein
Images of a generation

No introduction needed. Here’s Abdul Mati Klarwein. Maybe I feel especially familiar with his style of painting because it was…

Jean Liedloff
The Continuum concept

This book is a must for all future parents. Besides that they don’t need to learn much.

Islamic architecture
Kaleidoscopes of adoration

Gazing up into the kaleidoscopic worlds of these Iranian mosque ceilings invokes a feeling of transcendental glory.

Viktor Schauberger
Comprehend and copy nature

Viktor Schauberger (1885 — 1958) was an exceptional inventor and scientist. His body of work revolves around water and it’s natural behavior and inherent energy.