Swedenborg and the Arts
International Conference
B
ryn Athyn College is hosting the Swedenborg and the Arts International
Conference June 6-9 in the Brickman Center. This first-ever such
conference is dedicated to examining the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg’s
writings on the arts. More than 25 scholars from 10 countries will be present to
explore and discuss Swedenborg’s substantial influence on literature, painting,
architecture, music and other forms of art.
Co-sponsors with Bryn Athyn College are: the Swedenborg Foundation,
The Swedenborg Society (London, England), Glencairn Museum, the Center
for Swedenborgian Studies of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in
Berkeley, California, and the Swedenborg Scientific Association. Co-Chairs
are Dr. Jane Williams-Hogan of Bryn Athyn College and Dr. Devin Zuber,
GTU.
The conference offers a singular opportunity to hear how Swedenborg’s
theology and science catalyzed a number of artists and writers, ranging from
Romantic poet William Blake to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Attendees will learn how artists capture in paint or stone the reality of
an inner spiritual world, and how artists George Inness and William Keith
attempted to answer this question on their canvases and transformed American
landscape painting in the process.
Why did Swedenborg’s view of heaven and the cosmos shape urban design
and architecture, from Daniel Burnham’s plans for Chicago to the Arts and
Crafts Movements of the late 19 th century? And how did Swedenborg – “the
Buddha of the North” in D. T. Suzuki’s words – end up becoming a critical
resource for East-West cultural translation for early Modernists in Japan?
Artists, writers and musicians inspired by the ideas contained in
Swedenborg’s works are still painting, still writing, and still designing today.
Some of them will be at the conference to discuss what they are working on
and their plans for the future.
For further information:
• www.brynathyn.edu/swedenborgconference
• htpps://swedenborgartsconference.wordpress.com
• www.facebook.com/SwedenborgArtsConference)
218