The Colorful Apocalypse: Journeys in Outsider Art

By Greg Bottoms

Book Overview

The Reverend Howard Finster was twenty feet tall, suspended in darkness. Or so he appeared in the documentary film that introduced a teenaged Greg Bottoms to the renowned outsider artist whose death would help inspire him, fourteen years later, to travel the country. Beginning in Georgia with a trip to Finster's famous Paradise Gardens, his journey--of which The Colorful Apocalypse is a masterly chronicle--is an unparalleled look into the lives and visionary works of some of Finster's contemporaries: the self-taught evangelical artists whose beliefs and oeuvres occupy the gray area between madness and Christian ecstasy. With his prodigious gift for conversation and quietly observant storytelling, Bottoms draws us into the worlds of such figures as William Thomas Thompson, a handicapped ex-millionaire who painted a 300-foot version of the book of Revelation; Norbert Kox, an ex-member of the Outlaws biker gang who now lives as a recluse in rural Wisconsin and paints apocalyptic visual parables; and Myrtice West, who began painting to express the revelatory visions she had after her daughter was brutally murdered. These artists' works are as wildly varied as their life stories, but without sensationalizing or patronizing them, Bottoms--one of today's finest young writers--gets at the heart of what they have in common: the struggle to make sense, through art, of their difficult personal histories. In doing so, he weaves a true narrative as powerful as the art of its subjects, a work that is at once an enthralling travelogue, a series of revealing biographical portraits, and a profound meditation on the chaos of despair and the ways in which creativity can help order our lives.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226066851
• ISBN13: 9780226066851
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Greg Bottoms, The Colorful Apocalpyse

Greg Bottoms's project here is to figure out how the mental, physical, and familial truams of the outsider artists he examines is connected to their violent, apocalpytic, and death-haunted outsider art. What explains their passion and compulsion for creating their visionary and charismatic art? This links to his own past: Bottom had a violently schizophrenic brother who claimed to have religious visions and tried to kill himself. What distinguishes the visions and disturbing art of these outsider artists from the madness of schizophrenia and other disorders? The book is at its best (and really quite brilliant and revelatory) when Bottoms analyzes the psychology of these artists, his simultaneous connection to and detachment from them, and the impulse that drives them to make their art.

Great Travel Memoir

The Colorful Apocalypse is a great travel memoir that explores the pyschology and creativity of 'religious outsider artists' with a unique and sensitive perspective. It's a truly fascinating read.

readable criticism and good travelogue

The Colorful Apocalype is an excellent book that offers a unique blend of cultural history and theory, travel writing, and autobiography. It is also a very human and touching portrait of Southerners using art and religion to make sense of their pasts. The author's own past dealing with mental illness gives him a unique perspective and keeps him from harshly judging others because he too has been close to "crazy." A very literary book filled with dazzling writing and insight into religious obsession and psychology that would be classified as outside the norm.

a wonderful examination of art and madness

Once again, Bottoms turns his incisive gaze onto the topics of madness and creativity. With this wonderful nonfiction look at the work of several outsider artists, Bottoms again shows us how art can save our lives, all of us. A masterful work.