Healing Vibrations through Visionary Art

Abstract

Nineteenth-century visionary artist Georgiana Houghton believed in the healing qualities of her art, and she educated religious teachers and clergy about the nature of her spiritual images. This article examines Houghton’s mediumistic paintings and seeks to demonstrate how her experimentation with vibrant colors and manipulation of form prefigured early modernist painting techniques. In addition, this analysis expands on how Houghton transformed her knowledge of the tenets of Spiritualism, which she amalgamated with her understanding of the science of botany to produce flower form spiritual portraits that she later developed into complex visionary abstracted pictures.