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Arts Intel Report

Beyond Mysticism

Ernest Ralph Norling, The Timber Bucker, c. 1934.

1300 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101, United States

William Blake, Nicholas Roerich, Hilma af Klint—all these artists had a mystical bent, a sense of hidden knowledge that could be uncovered, revealed, in watercolors and paintings. This exhibition in Seattle looks to Pacific Northwest painters working in the early-20th century. They came from a number of modern movements yet were addressing a similar subject: the duality between nature and cities, as well as the unrelenting spread of industrialization. The show contains 150 pieces touched by mysticism, including works by the area’s “Big Four”—Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves. —Laura Jacobs

Photo Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum