Explore art & culture from a Buddhist perspective
Welcome to Urthona magazine, taking its name from William Blake’s zoa or archetypal spirit of the creative imagination Urthona blends a Romantic concern with inner and outer spiritual freedom with the insights of the Buddhist East. Urthona appears once a year in 68 page full colour A4.
This site is best viewed in desktop mode. Click on ESSAYS & ART FEATURES above for online essays on literature, art & more. Access all 35 printed back issues at URTHONA SHOP. More on our vision at ABOUT URTHONA link above. Scroll down for EDITOR’S BLOG – musings on art & spirit of place.
Current issue: e-Mag American Zen
CLICK IMAGE to buy current issue from Square storefront. American Zen issue 35 investigates the influence of Zen Buddhism on American letters and fine arts, from Pound to Cage via Abstract Expressionism.
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Current Issue American Zen – order CLICK HERE
Ginsberg and the Beats – by Acarasiddhi recalling a 50s childhood in California 
The Crack of Vision – Gary Snyder, Pound and American Zen influenced poetry 
Interview with Peter Cavaciuti modern master of Zen painting – photos by Jeremy Peters 
‘Tomo Series 2’: painting by Abhayavajra who talks about a quest for a ‘dimension of changing flow and interaction’ in his artistic process. 
FULL CONTENTS of issue 35 
GARY GACH on Bresson ‘nourishing, noble, needful…’
CLICK HERE for FREE 9 page sample of full 72 page issue
NB The American Zen issue (35) is only a available as digital download due to Covid restrictions. Issue 35 explores the dynamic encounter between American culture and Buddhism, especially Zen in the mid 20th century. From John Cage, to Beat poets Ginsberg & Snyder plus Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Tobey. In fact many of the most iconic figures of American arts are on these pages. Contents includes: * The Crack of Vision: Buddhist influenced poetry in North America – Pound to Snyder. * Fine new poetry from Dhivan, Paramananda, Rachel Jagger, Penny Hope and many others. * Rothko: Horizons, Emptiness and Perfect Vision by Donal Mac Erlaine. * Zen and Abstract Expressionism. * Ginsberg and the Beats – a personal memoire of 50s California from Acarasiddhi. * Gary Gach on Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest. * Fascinating abstract art from Abhayavajra in Suffolk…
If Romanticism did away with the notion of art as a mirror, D. T. Suzuki introduced another mirror to the discussion: the Zen mirror, an ubiquitous symbol of the clear mind reflecting reality as it is… Suzuki wants it both ways: he asserts the value of originality and creative particularity but insists that this should be neither personal, as the Romanticist claimed, nor social, as many contemporary thinkers argue, but should be based on an immediate access to and representation of reality that transcends the personal and the social.
This quote from David L. McMahon’s groundbreaking study The Making of Buddhist Modernism sums up the encounter between a modernism still deeply indebted to Romanticism and a vision of Zen shorn of its normal cultural and ethical context. This attempt to discover the deepest truth of the everyday, of ‘this very life we are living’ in the words of John Cage, who was profoundly influenced by the writings of D. T. Suzuki, is the topic of our 35th issue. Here we explore the transformative encounter of Buddhism, especially Zen, with 20th century poetry and painting.
Urthona’s Vision
Urthona, appearing once a year, is a lavishly illustrated, 68 page, glossy magazine: with original and inspired poetry, fine art & photography features, reviews plus in depth articles on a fascinating theme chosen for each issue. Themes have included Indian Art, Romanticism, Art & Ecology, Writing as a sacred art…
We explore art, literature, culture and imagination from a modern Buddhist perspective. Our inspirations are William Blake and the Romantics, the zen poets of Japan, symbolists, psychonauts and radicals of all ages and climes.
Editor’s blog: musings on art, literature & spirit of place – scroll down this page.
On top menu above: click ‘ABOUT URTHONA + CONTACTS‘ for more on our vision.
On top menu above: find links to feature pages for longer online essays / art features on many dimensions of art and the sacred for the 21st century.
Urthona – Buddhism & art 