Visionary

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Visionary

Defined narrowly, a visionary is one who claims to experience a vision

Vision (religion)

In spirituality including religion, visions comprise inspirational renderings, generally of a future state and/or of a mythologyical being, and are believed to come from a deity, sometimes directly or indirectly via prophets, and serve to inspire or prod believers as part of a revelation or an Epiphany ....
or apparition

Apparition

An apparition is an act or instance of appearing, including:*a Vision such as a Marian apparition; or*certain ostensibly paranormal experiences such as ghost, doppelg?nger or bilocation; or...
connected to the supernatural. At times this involves seeing into the future. The visionary state is achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, day dreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German people abbess, author, counselor, Linguistics, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, visionary and composer....
, a 12th century artist/visionary.

Extended meanings
A vision can be political, religious, environmental, social, or technological in nature.

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Encyclopedia

Defined narrowly, a visionary is one who claims to experience a vision

Vision (religion)

Apparition

Hildegard of Bingen

Extended meanings

A vision can be political, religious, environmental, social, or technological in nature. By extension, a visionary can also be a person with a clear, distinctive and specific (in some details) vision of the future, usually connected with advances in technology

Technology

Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its Natural environment....
or social/political arrangements. For example, Ted Nelson

Ted Nelson

Theodor Holm Nelson is an United States sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965....
is referred to as a visionary in connection with the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
.

Other visionaries simply imagine what does not yet exist, but might some day, as some forms of visioning (or gazing) provide a glimpse into the possible future. Therefore, visioning can mean seeing in a utopian way what does not yet exist on earth - but might exist in another realm - such as the ideal

Ideal

Ideal may refer to:* Ideal , values that one actively pursues as goals* Platonic ideal, a philosophical idea of trueness of form, associated with Plato...
or perfect realm as imagined or thought. Examples are Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster ?Bucky? Fuller was an American architect, author, designer, futurist, inventor, and visionary. He was the second president of Mensa International....
in architecture

Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
and design

Design

Design is used both as a noun and a verb. The term is often tied to the various applied arts and engineering . As a verb, "to design" refers to the process of originating and planning for a product, structure, system, or component with intention....
, and some of the pioneers of personal computing such as Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs is an United States businessman and co-founder, Chairman, and Chief executive officer of Apple Inc.. Jobs is the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios....
. Some people use mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
to make visionary discoveries in the nature of the universe

Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
. In that sense, a visionary may also function as a secular prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet is a person who has claimed to have encountered the supernatural or the Divinity, often one who serves as an intermediary with humanity....
. Some visionaries emphasize communication

Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
, and some assume a figurehead role in organizing a social group.

In art

Artists may produce work loosely categorized as visionary art for its luminous

Luminous

Luminous may refer to:*luminosity, a scientific term referring to different things depending on the field in which it is used*Luminous , a short story collection by Greg Egan...
content and/or for its use of artistic techniques that call for the use of extended powers of perception

Perception

In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sense information. It is a task far more complex than was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was predicted that building perceiving machines would take about a decade, a goal which is still very far from fruition....
in the viewer: (e.g. Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau was a France Symbolist painters whose main focus was the illustration of Bible and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas rather than visual images, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolism writers and artists, who saw him as a precursor to their movement....
, Samuel Palmer

Samuel Palmer

Samuel Palmer was an England Landscape art Painting, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in English Romanticism and produced visionary pastoral paintings....
, Jean Delville

Jean Delville

Jean Delville was a Belgian symbolist painter, writer, and occultist. He founded the Salon d?Art Idealiste, which is considered the Belgian equivalent to the Parisian Rose & Cross Salon and the Pre-Raphaelite movement in London....
, Ernst Fuchs

Ernst Fuchs

Ernst Fuchs may refer to:*Ernst Fuchs , Austrian artist*Ernst Fuchs , Austrian ophthalmologist*Ernst Fuchs , German New Testament scholar and student of Rudolf Bultmann...
, the French Symbolist Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a Symbolist painters and printmaker, born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France....
, Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin was a Painting, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique used by William S....
, Max Ernst

Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German Painting, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of Dada movement and Surrealism....
, Stanley Spencer

Stanley Spencer

Sir Stanley Spencer was an England Painting. Much of his greatest work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracle to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small village where he was born and spent most of his life; fellow-villagers frequently stand in for their Gospel counterparts, lending on occasion Christian teachings an eerie...
, Edward Burne Jones, Adolf Wolfli, Fred Sandback

Fred Sandback

Fred Sandback was a minimalist conceptual-based sculptor known for his string sculptures and prints....
, William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English people English poetry, Painting, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both poetry and the visual arts of the Romanticism....
, Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch was an Early Netherlandish painting Painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The artist's work is well-known for the use of fantastic imagery to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narratives....
and Henry Darger

Henry Darger

'Henry Joseph Darger, Jr.' was a reclusive United States writer and artist who worked as a janitor in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm,...
).

Visionary art

Visionary art

Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including supernatural or mystical Theme s, or is based in such experiences....
can be incorrectly defined as a category of primitive art (art of those not formally trained) rather than describing people who have used their visions (or dreams) to create their paintings. Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal? i Dom?nech, 1st Marquis of P?bol was a Spain Catalonia surrealist painter born in Figueres.Dal? was a skilled Technical drawing, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealism work....
is one artist who would exemplify visionary art that is neither religious nor primitive.