EYE FOR THE WORLD
Exhibition and catalogue on the visionary thinker Jacob Böhme
14 December 2019 through 14 March 2020
Embassy of the Free Mind (EFM), Keizersgracht 123, Amsterdam
This travelling international exhibition is a collaboration between the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the EFM and pays tribute to Jacob Böhme as one of Germany’s greatest philosophers.
The shoemaker who did not stick to his trade
Jacob Böhme was a shoemaker by profession, but a writer by vocation. In 1600 he had an intuition that granted him an all-encompassing insight into the secrets of nature and the cosmos. It took him more than ten years to express this vision in his first work, Aurora. When this manuscript began circulating and became immediately popular, it was confiscated by the local authorities in 1613 and its author placed under a writing ban. Yet, this did not stop him from writing over thirty works during his lifetime. Böhme was a champion of toleration: he was an outspoken opponent of war, violence and the persecution of minorities.
