Clive Barker - Visions Of Heaven & Hell

Okay so I finished reading Clive Barker's Galilee--not anything to write home about, but good for me: I'm a fan of not just his writing, but his artistry. I've perused a lot of his art through the years and I've always dug it quite a bit so when I saw that an anthology of a lot his stuff had been released back in '05 I jumped at the chance to check it out.

Visions of Heaven and Hell is about three hundred and forty pages long and collects a ton (I'm guessing not ALL) of his paintings from 1973 to 2004. They are broken up into long sections with an introduction by Clive Barker. I don't think they are specific "periods" of his craft, but they are grouped by specific themes that show up in his work. One chapter is called "Devils and Demons" where he calls out a few examples in the following pages and talks about what they mean to him and where he got some of his ideas. Often throughout the book he will tell you what types of music he had been listening to or what painters had inspired him. The points at the beginning of each chapter are definitely some of the biggest highlights of the package and his insight inspires you to check out his paintings in much thorough detail.

Being that this is Clive Barker--Master of Horror and Fantasy--there are a lot of hideous creatures, deformed figures, and a lot of nudity. In fact he has a whole chapter called "Lovers" which has a ton of his sexual paintings. A majority of these are abstract with one character being a medusa of sorts...just with penises hanging out of its head. More paintings have an almost H.R. Giger symbolic phallic meaning to them with surrealistic oil paintings that are vivid and lucid enough to make you question what you are truly looking at.

What I found interesting while looking at all of this work and how I personally interpreted everything, is that the common theme throughout this whole book was guilt. Clive Barker is a noted homosexual, and a lot of his work early work had a very strong overtone, but on the other side of the coin there is many work collected showing homosexual sex that's very beautiful. He captures sexuality is a very psychological, messy, and gorgeous manner that is much harder to describe--you just have to see it yourself and see the walls that have been broken down.

Along for the ride are also a ton of character portraits that are reminiscent of van Gogh in some ways in the closeness of the subject as well as the thick, detailed painting job where you see the strokes from the brush quick clearly. That being said, the portraits are stunning. I've never seen color used so effectively before in any paintings I've ever seen. Now, I'm not an art major and I'm more of a looker--I don't really know anything about this subject, but I DO know when something is not only pleasing to the eye, but very creative and effective-and it's all here. There are whirlwinds of colors on each page (aside from standard ink on paper work that's included in the book) that are very sloppy, but beautifully captured on each canvass.

Again, these are SO hard to explain, but you have to believe me!

There is a lot of variety found here. You have your demons, but you also have a crazy, circus themed chapter which is chock full of eye candy, a chapter related to death called "Memento Mori" and Barker's conceived notions of the afterlife. Also included are pretty landscapes gorgeous castles that are straight out of a fantasy world. One of my favorite paintings in the book is the one right before the chapter "Seas and Lands". Called "The Flying City", it depicts a city in a floating cloud. Granted, I don't do the picture any justice. It's very pretty and meticulously painted. My other favorite painting is the final one included in the book called "Burning of Carrion's Palace", which is a spread of two pages that makes the book almost seem like it's on fire. It's an EPIC picture of humongous proportions showing a palace burning in a hellfire. I stare at this picture a lot and constantly find something new to look at.

If there are any Clive Barker fans out there you can see characters from his Abarat series appear in this volume and being that I haven't read those books (yet!) there's not much I can tell you about them. However, there are early portrayals of characters in this work that would eventually inspire some of the characters and monsters in his Books of Blood series and Weaveworld. I think this a great visual companion to go with all of his words because it truly brings his horrific visions through the threshold of fantasy to tangible reality.

This book was a huge surprise. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did; I've never read any artsy-fartsy books before, but this one is very classy and aside from the horrific contents inside-it is very elegant. Clive Barker has not only made me a fan of his writing (I'm enjoying Weaveworld right now) as well as his movies, but it's safe to say that he's in my top five favorite painters. His work is varied especially in this collected work. You have sorcerers on one page and then tender and chaotically graceful (total oxy-moron, but definitely fits) images of an ocean with a ship and beautiful night sky on another. The tidbits that Barker gives as the book goes on are also very interesting and help me get into the mind of this genius.

The only thing that I can say might hinder someone's enjoyment is the obvious: the paintings are graphic. There is nudity, sex, gore-all of what you'd expect. It's the size of a coffee table book, but unless you're Martha Stewart or a babysitter I highly doubt you are going to want this laying around for anyone to pick up. Me? I could care less. Art is art and it's not like any of my family or friends would be surprised. I also wanted to mention that the book isn't Satanic or anything related. Barker is a noted Christian and while a lot of his work has Hell in it--it's not done in a light to glorify it. I wouldn't read Clive Barker if he was.

The book is a pricy fifty dollars, but if you are like me and do your part in the circle of life by buying everything used (best form of recycling hands down) then you can find this book for around ten dollars on Amazon. I definitely recommend it wholeheartedly and while I finished reading it, I am certainly not finished with it. The haunting scope of Barker's art is something I will look through whenever the need calls for it. And maybe for other purposes....Tattoo ideas abound!

Jason Haskins, 2009



More Clive Barker!



Galilee