Leonardo, Romancia and Ra: Art History

Description

Leonardo, Romancia and Ra is a book of extended visions and waking dreams. It continues where my previous book, Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis, came to an end. But whereas Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis is sometimes nightmare-ish in its psychiatric settings, Leonardo, Romancia And Ra is more romantic, featuring the soul of romance herself, the spirit Romancia.

In the central chapter of the book I accompany Romancia to Paris for a ten day holiday, and art history is discussed as the story of the French revolution and French romantic art are both revealed.

The spirits of Leonardo and Michelangelo make appearances in the book, as they did in Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis, and so do two new spirits, the French romantic painters Géricault and Delacroix, best of friends, and guardians of Parisian revolutionary integrity. At the end of the Parisian holiday, Romancia vanishes to become the wind of love, whilst I return to England where I have a confrontation with the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra.

About the Author

Michael Black was born in 1962, and Leonardo, Romancia And Ra describes his life and spiritual experiences within the British mental health system over the past fifteen years. Like its predecessor, Angels, Cleopatra And Psychosis (also published by Chipmunka), the book stands up for the legitimacy of so-called psychotic experience, and questions the validity of the received medical model.

Michael grew up in Cheshire, where he attended Wilmslow Grammar School before doing an English and History degree at York University. He then completed a doctorate in anti-apartheid literature at Cambridge University, whilst variously working as a journalist and theatre producer.

Michael is the author of one novel, Crossing Out The Emperor, and six stage plays, all of which can be viewed at his website www.mwblack.co.uk. He has received three Arts Council Playwrights Bursaries, and is currently working on a new stage play and two film scripts.