top of page

John Shannon Hendrix Books

Books written and edited on the subjects of architecture, aesthetics, philosophy and psychoanalysis.

John Shannon Hendrix
Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral

ISBN 9781472412751

 

​The purpose of the book is to understand medieval architecture in relation to medieval society, values, philosophy and religion, focusing on Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral. The architecture and topography of Lincoln Cathedral are examined in their cultural contexts, in relation to scholastic philosophy, science and cosmology, and medieval ideas about light and geometry, as highlighted in the writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln Cathedral in the thirteenth century.

 

John Shannon Hendrix
John Shannon Hendrix
John Shannon Hendrix
The Splendour of English Gothic Architecture

KINDLE, ISBN 9781646994434

 

This book explains and celebrates the richness of English churches and cathedrals, which have a major place in medieval architecture. Several photographs of these architectural testimonies allow us to understand the whole originality of Britain during the Gothic era: in Canterbury, Wells, Lincoln, York, and Salisbury. The English Gothic architecture is a poetic one, speaking both to the senses and spirit. 
 

 

 

Robert Grosseteste

Philosophy of Intellect and Vision

ISBN 9783896655240

 

The book illustrates how the philosophies of Grosseteste are rooted in Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Peripatetic philosophies, and shows how Grosseteste made important contributions to theories of intellect and vision. Emphasis is placed on the relation between Grosseteste's philosophies and previous influences, as well as their relation to subsequent philosophies in the middle ages, and the Renaissance to the twentieth century. The philosophies are also considered in relation to the architecture of Lincoln Cathedral. 

 

 

Architecture and Psychoanalysis

ISBN 0820481718

 

Architecture and Psychoanalysis is an analysis of the relation between psychoanalytic theory and compositional strategies in architecture. In psychoanalysis it focuses on the writing of Jacques Lacan as well as theories of the structure of the psyche, linguistics, and perception. In architecture it focuses on the writings and projects of Peter Eisenman. There are extended discussions on the thought of figures such as Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Jacques Derrida, and of the architecture of figures such as Leon Battista Alberti, Francesco Borromini, Giuseppe Terragni, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

John Shannon Hendrix

Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Spirit

From Plotinus to Schelling and Hegel

ISBN 9780820476322

 

In examining the aesthetics of Plotinus, Schelling, and Hegel, the book discusses the Platonic bases of the aesthetics of Plotinus and the Plotinian bases of the aesthetics of Schelling and Hegel in the philosophy of spirit, identity philosophy, and transcendental idealism. Examining the notion of art as philosophy, as a product of mind, and as an instrument of intellect in the relation between reason and perception, the book involves concepts of the universal and particular, freedom and necessity, the beautiful and sublime, allegory and symbolism, consciousness and self-consciousness, subjective and objective spirit, and artistic representation.

John Shannon Hendrix

Neoplatonic Aesthetics

Music, Literature, and the Visual Arts

ISBN 0820471119

 

The book explores the idea of a Neoplatonic aesthetic, a philosophy of the arts based on the writings of Plato and the Neoplatonists - principally Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicolas Cusanus, and Marsilio Ficino - and more contemporary philosophers - Stephen MacKenna, Iris Murdoch, Denman Ross, Jacques Derrida, and Hans Georg Gadamer. This book examines the artistic production of figures such as Gioseffe Zarlino, Fra Angelico, Leon Battista Alberti, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Giorgio Vasari, and it formulates theoretical approaches to contemporary production based in the Neoplatonic philosophies.

John Shannon Hendrix

Platonic Architectonics

Platonic Philosophies and the Visual Arts

ISBN 0820471100

 

The book examines philosophical structures of Plato in their structural, spatial, and architectonic implications. It examines elements of Plato’s philosophical systems in relation to other philosophical systems, including those of Anaximander, Plotinus, Proclus, Nicolas Cusanus, Marsilio Ficino, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. It also examines Plato’s philosophy in relation to architectonic conceptions in the arts, including the work of Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca in the Renaissance, Paul Cézanne, and the Cubists and Deconstructivists in the twentieth century.

John Shannon Hendrix

Architectural Forms and Philosophical Structures

ISBN 082046726X

 

Architectural Forms and Philosophical Structures examines architectural and architectonic forms as products of philosophical and epistemological structures in selected cultures and time periods, and analyzes architecture as a text of its culture. Relations between architectural forms and philosophical structures are explored in Western civilization, beginning in Egypt and Greece and culminating in twentieth-century Europe and America. Architecture, like all forms of artistic expression, is interwoven with the beliefs and the structures of knowledge of its culture.

 

 

John Shannon Hendrix
John Shannon Hendrix

Neoplatonism and the Arts

ISBN 0773469850

 

Neoplatonism and the Arts illustrates the important role that Neoplatonism has played in artistic production in a variety of artforms. The essays are from a conference organized in Rome with Liana De Girolami Cheney, examining the role that Neoplatonism has played in artistic production in Italy. There are chapters by contributors on Georges Gemistos-Plethon, Marsilio Ficino, Plato, Michelangelo, El Greco, Francesco Borromini and Athanasius Kircher, The Myth of Hercules, Sandro Botticelli, Dante, Giorgio Vasari, Francesco Clemente and Giovanni Macchia.

 

 

 

 

The Relation Between Architectural Forms and Philosophical Structures in the Work of Francesco Borromini in Seventeenth-Century Rome

ISBN 0773469958

 

Borromini's built forms are seen to be related to philosophical structures, and the architecture is a catechism of the philosophies of its culture, in a culmination of classical and renaissance ideas. The analysis includes a historical reconstruction of the setting of seventeenth-century Rome and an examination of drawings and built work in relation to published diagrams and essays, which were translated by Borromini into geometries and architectural forms. Buildings examined include San Carlo alle Fontane, Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, and the Oratorio di San Filippo Neri.

John Shannon Hendrix

History and Culture in Italy

ISBN 0761826289

 

History and Culture in Italy is a scholarly, introductory survey of the history and culture of Italy, focusing on art and architecture, literature and philosophy, politics and historical events, and observations of daily life in modern Italy. The book is based on lectures and tours given over the course of four years to American students in Italy. It is written as a narrative, which readers have found makes it enjoyable to read. Chapters are identified according to subject. The book emphasizes the importance of the history and culture of Italy to modern life and identity in Western culture.

bottom of page