Montagu Lomax: The background and motivation of a 'remarkable man' who spearheaded lunacy reform.

Doctor Montagu Lomax was a retired General Practioner, whose service in English lunatic asylums during the First World War inspired him to write The experiences of an asylum doctor: with suggestions for asylum and lunacy law reform. Published in 1921, the book acted as a catalyst for lunacy reform and stimulated improvements in the mental health services in the United Kingdom. Lomax spent the remainder of his retirement campaigning for lunacy reform. He suffered financial and personal hardship following the publication of the book and was castigated by his own profession. On the centenary of the publication of Experiences, this article explores the background and motivation of a remarkable man.

A improvável mistura: Nietzsche, Fedorov, misticismo e ciência na formação do imaginário das vanguardas russas/soviéticas

Esse artigo pretende apresentar essa difícil combinação, que resultou em uma arte complexa e cheia de meandros, um desejo por mudanças que não temia a nada. Para trabalhar esse intrincado momento, utilizaremos a Sociologia do Conhecimento, a Análise Formal e a História da Arte. As Vanguardas artísticas russas tiveram na sua formação variados elementos que compuseram um amálgama diferenciado e abrangente de idéias e posturas, muitas vezes opostas e até contraditórias entre si. O uso do nietzschianismo e do misticismo teosófico se complementam e formam um modelo de 'Super-Homem' místico e total, ao passo que a busca pela 'vitória sobre a morte' e 'a superação do canibal' de origem fedoroviana levaram o 'Super-Homem' a se rivalizar com Deus. Acrescido a tudo isso, uma nova visão: o vislumbre da eternidade dado pela quarta dimensão e pelas Ciências em ebulição no início do século XX. A Arte russa passou a se ver como um profeta, a anunciar um novo mundo, a buscar novas formas de viver, ao tentar a fusão entre Arte e Vida. Cada artista se via como vanguarda e portador da Verdade. Não é somente um imaginário, mas também uma utopia, pronta para sair do abstrato para moldar a realidade.

This article intends to introduce that hard mixture which resulted in a complex and full of turnings art, in a wish for changes, both without fears. To work with these complex moment, it's necessary to use the Knowledge Sociology, the formal analysis and the History of Art. The Artistic Russian Avant-Garde had, at its foundation, varied elements that arrange a unique amalgam, wide at its ideas and dispositions that very often are contradictory. The nietzschianism and the¬osophical misticism complementary usage created a model of mystic and integral 'superman'. At the other side, the searching for the 'victory over death' and the 'overcome of the cannibal', resultants of fedorovian concepts, takes this 'super-man' to a confrontation with God. To sum up with ali these questions and concepts, the new vision, the eternity glimmer offered by the fourth dimension researchs and the Science at the early's 20th century effervescency. The Russian Art embraces a prophet role, foretelling a new world and searching for new ways to live and trying a fusion of Art and Ufe. Every artist saw himself as Avant-Garde and truth messenger. Not only a Imaginary, but also a utopia, ready to jump from the abstraction universe to the reality.