Edward Clarke
The Secret Mind of Art invites the reader into the mysteries of Western art. Its twelve chapters accompany readers on a transformative journey through some of the most significant works of the European tradition. Having first passed through the Door in the Sky of the Pantheon in Rome, we contemplate Christ in his Mandorla at Autun Cathedral, then meet Notre Dame in Paris as a stone, timber, and glass manifestation of the New Jerusalem. Each subsequent chapter furthers the adventure chronologically into hidden dimensions of painting, sculpture, and architecture, by the likes of Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Donatello, Michelangelo, Titian, Palladio, William Blake, van Gogh, and Cézanne. We are awakened stepwise to wonders forming a soul-making ladder for the contemplative spectator or reader. Here we have a crack at answering W.B. Yeats’s query: How can art bring the soul of man to God?
