ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses more specifically on the discussion of gnostic influence on visual art production. Gnostic/gnosticism/gnosis has been an attractive paradigm through which to interpret modern and contemporary aesthetics and visual art. "Gnostic aesthetics" has been employed to designate approaches that diverge from dominant aesthetic categories and frameworks of experience or those understood to employ dualist frameworks. There is a general corollary between aesthetic experience and art-making and religious or spiritual insight in popular Western consciousness: this conceptual intertwining is often designated as theoaesthetics. "Gnostic" in the context of visual arts practice is more usually deployed to signal the selected artist's/artwork's distinction from recognizable or validated artistic trends. Gnosticism enables the recapitulation of several aesthetic themes from romanticism including positioning artwork as expressing direct relation with the divine / divine knowledge as well as ascribing to art a redemptive and salvific role.
