The Art of Creation: Essays on the Self and Its Powers - A Spiritual Philosophy of Matter and Energy Carpenter EdwardPaperback

Poet and philosopher Edward Carpenter explains how the creative processes have changed with the advent of shared cultures, changing how spiritual thoughts and feelings are expressed in art.

The author was acutely aware of the contrasts between the established, morally controlled rigors of Victorian society and the emerging artistic and social changes of the 20th century. Carpenter spends much of this book articulating the impressions he has of a changing world; during the Victorian era, he saw most people moving through life tediously as automatons. However, the sudden arrival of new concepts - particularly those introduced by Eastern religions - breathed life and color into the West's stagnant creative fields. This birthed differences in lifestyles, new kinds of art and strikingly original forms of philosophic