Rating: 
Summary: An inspiring, spiritually fulfilling feast for the senses.
Review: "The End is Near" makes you yearn for Divine inspiration regardless of its source or circumstance. The artwork is stunning, the artist bios are awe-inspiring and the essays are thought provoking, empowering and spiritually comforting. This is an amazing gift to give to others...but do yourself a favor and give it to yourself first. And then go out and pick up a paintbrush, a pencil, or a piece of coal and create. This book will make you realize that the best art you ever see could be just below the surface of your own consciousness.
Rating:
Summary: An inspiring, spiritually fulfilling feast for the senses.
Review: "The End is Near" makes you yearn for Divine inspiration regardless of its source or circumstance. The artwork is stunning, the artist bios are awe-inspiring and the essays are thought provoking, empowering and spiritually comforting. This is an amazing gift to give to others...but do yourself a favor and give it to yourself first. And then go out and pick up a paintbrush, a pencil, or a piece of coal and create. This book will make you realize that the best art you ever see could be just below the surface of your own consciousness.
Rating: 
Summary: **Winner** 1998 Benjamin Franklin National Book Award
Review: "This timely, fascinating book collects color reproductions of work by 58 artists that depict religious, cosmic and often quite psychotic visions of fantastic worlds and states of mind. Adding to its inherent surreality, the book features an eclectic collection of essayists, among them Stephen Jay Gould, author and professor of paleontology, the Dalai Lama and Roger Manley, a prominent curator of visionary art."-Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly "The obsessiveness, the intensity and yes, sometimes the just plain madnss that characterize what's called outsider art also account for its extraordinary vitality and the direct impact of these images on the viewer. There's no polite art-museum glimpsing of this work. It smacks you in the eyes. Just in book form there are many frightening, depressing or exalting visions here. If nothing else, The End is Near should put to rest any questions of whether "outsider" art should be studied, collected or shown in museums at all. " -John Strausbaugh, New York Press "Without question the slickest, classiest, hippest, heaviest, headiest Outsider Art publication this year. One might be tempted to call it the contemporary Zeitgeist of Outsider Art." -Michael Bonesteel, The Outsider "The perfect Christmas gift for John Waters. A revelation from beginning to end." -Flaunt Magazine
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and thought-provoking
Review: By showing the amazing collection of the American Museum of Visionary Art, this book provokes the reader to re-think the distinctions our society draws between genius and madness. I've actually been to the Museum in Baltimore and am thrilled that this artwork is now available on a large scale. This book may not be for everyone, but those willing to expose themselves to its often disturbing imagery will be rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: close to perfection
Review: I was completely blown away by the beauty of the visions contained in this book. I am an art student, and i feel the artist in this book are never self indulgent, their vision isn't cluttered by desire of fame and recognition. they are the last american heroes. roger manley did an incredible job of editing only the most incredible pieces, of discovering new talents( paul laffoley,grant wallace) and also bringing new pieces from overexposed outsider art favorite (howard finster). the printing job is excellent and the design lively.i can't wait to see what this publishing company is gonna do next.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have Book for ANY Library
Review: My wife and I just bought the hardcover and recommend it highly. We loved the reading the background of the authors. It proves that you do not have to be a celebrity or athlete or CEO to be "considered successful". Some of the world's greatest talent are never heard from. We have Dilettante Press to thank for bringing us this fine collection of artists. I work with libraries and recommend this book to all of them.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have Book for ANY Library
Review: My wife and I just bought the hardcover and recommend it highly. We loved the reading the background of the authors. It proves that you do not have to be a celebrity or athlete or CEO to be "considered successful". Some of the world's greatest talent are never heard from. We have Dilettante Press to thank for bringing us this fine collection of artists. I work with libraries and recommend this book to all of them.
Rating:
Summary: The world's largest collection of Apocalyptic Visionary art
Review: Nothing provides higher octane fuel for the imagination than the suspicion that some day-perhaps very soon-the entire world will suddenly end. Then what? Will the long-awaited Heaven-on-Earth come to pass? Or will all creation be consumed by fire, leaving nothing but ash? Throughout the ages visionaries have looked ahead to "The End of the World" seeking insight into the ultimate question of why we were ever created here on Earth in the first place. First gathered in a critically-acclaimed exhibition at the new American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, The End is Near! offers the largest collection of visionary art ever assembled on the subjects of Apocalypse, Millennium, and Utopia. Many works included here were shown for the first time in this exhibit and have never appeared in print. Alongside these powerful, challenging, and at times obsessively elaborate works of art, The End is Near! presents some of the most provocative and innovative minds of our time probing the mysteries of the year 2000, the coming age, and the end of the world. Harvard scientist Stephen Jay Gould, Georgia's famous visionary evangelist Reverend Howard Finster, Apocalypse culture expert Adam Parfrey, and Nobel Prize recipient His Holiness the Dalai Lama join curator Roger Manley and dozens of gifted, world-renowned visionary artists in the quest for ultimate knowledge. The End is Near! reveals a strong spiritual kinship between these brilliant minds of today and major luminaries of the past like Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake and Emmanuel Swedenborg. It hints at shared understandings between self-taught contemporary visionaries and such ancient prophetic traditions found in Classical Greece, Aboriginal Australia and the seers of the Holy Scriptures. Included in The End is Near! is the entire Revelation of St. John the Divine, perhaps the most influential and widely referenced-yet rarely read-work on the ultimate fate of humanity and the universe. The End is Near! should become compulsory reading for anyone intrigued by the mysteries, depths, and triumphs of the human spirit.
Rating:
Summary: DYNAMIC AND BEAUTIFUL.
Review: The End Is Near brings together interesting essays and most unsual artists. The quality of the images and paintings displayed in this book make it a MUST for any art collector and connoisseur of fine books. Essayists in this book bring new meaning to the art depicted. Visionary art and Outsider Art come together in this book beautifully. WELL DONE...a "must have".
Rating:
Summary: Excellent source for outsider art with a specific theme!
Review: There are lots of books out there on outsider art-but this is great because it's a guide to art from all over the world with one theme in mind. It helps put the whole genre into a form that is more easily understandable and, best of all, fun. I really love this book!
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