Three Painters: Evola, Crowley, Schuon

There are serious painters – artists – and then there are dabblers, those who paint as an aside to their major occupation, and it is often the dabblers who are more interesting than the bona fide artists. A previous posting to these pages (see here) concerned the watercolours of three notable amateurs, Prince Charles, Winston Churchill and Chancellor Herr Hitler. The present posting follows much the same format, but we will be contrasting the paintings of three purported spiritual luminaries: Baron Julius Evola, hero of Right-wing perennialism, Frithjof Schuon, touted by his followers as the ‘Messenger of the Religio Perennis’, and the English occultist Aleister Crowley, the self-declared ‘Master Therion’, Prophet of the Aeon of Horus. All three of these characters - men of spiritual pretensions - took to the canvas at certain junctures in their lives, and as well as the writings for which they are better known left behind a legacy of visual art. Largely, such works are of concern only to devotees, but all three conducted official exhibitions during their lifetime and in all three cases their work continues to be exhibited and can command healthy prices whenever they go to market. They are assuredly very different thinkers, and accordingly very different artists, as we shall see:

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BARON JULIUS EVOLA

In his misspent youth, before he had discovered the writings of Rene Guenon and realized his vocation as a spokesman for political perennialism, Baron Evola dabbled in Dada. In fact, he was a major force in bringing the Dada avante guard to Italy in the 1920s. He exhibited in Rome and caused a stir with his brash radicalism. His paintings, however, now appear to be quite ordinary examples of Dadist abstraction, though here and there we find hints of symbols and motifs that foreshadow the esoteric interests to which the Baron later devoted himself with distinction. 

In truth, though, many of his paintings are beneath ordinary and fall into the category of horrible. It is only die-hard Evola enthusiasts who find much in them that is redeeming. The present author, in any case, only likes one or two – indicated below – even though he is a reader of Evola’s writings and has a high regard for them. Indeed, Baron Evola’s books and essays become more prescient and relevant every day; they are worthy of every attention. But the paintings? No. And the Baron recognized this himself and, to his credit, later dismissed Dada as decadence. His paintings, unfortunately, are ill-matched to his written ouevre. He dabbled in poetry as well - equally undistinguished. 

Senza titolo 1921

Composition No. 3.

Paesaggio interiore

For whatever reason, this is the Evola painting that takes the present author's fancy. Colour, composition, intensity. It is not entirely successful, but it is, all the same, almost musical. 

Nudo di donna (afroditica) - a painting with no redeeming qualities at all!

La libra s’infiamma e le piramidi

In this work we see the appearance of the alchemical symbol for sulphur. The painting itself has no great qualities. It is a completely undistinguished attempt at Dada abstraction. But it was in this period that Baron Evola began delving into esoteric symbolism. Thankfully, he turned away from painting and embraced esotericism instead. 

A Bunch of Flowers, 1918. There is, perhaps, something to be said for this composition. Lyricism, like Kandinsky. 

Paesaggio interire, aperture del diaframma 

(“Interior landscape, the opening of the diaphragm”

“Piccola tavola (vista superiore)” (“Small table (upper surface)”) 1920

Dadist composition (1920s)

There is perhaps something to be said for this composition as well. 

Portrait cubiste de femme, 1919-20

This is a genuinely horrid painting. Many of Evola's paintings are bland or contrived but some, such as this, are manifestly ugly. 

Abstraction

The Generator of the Universe. (What can one say about this? It is hard to believe that any follower of Rene Guenon could ever have painted such a thing!)

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ALEISTER CROWLEY

Numerous posts to these pages feature or make mention of Mr Crowley, often in unflattering terms. The present author is clearly not a Thelemite (follower of Crowley’s ‘Law of Thelema’) and in fact has a suitable disdain for every effort Mr Crowley made to concoct a religion around himself. His so-called ‘Book of the Law’ is bunk and his creed of ‘Do what thou wilt’ is libertarian nonsense dressed up as ancient Egyptian profundity. Moreover, Crowley – diametrically contrary to his own inflated regard for himself - must rate as one of the worst poets in the English language. W. B. Yeats – one of the best – once quipped that Crowley had managed to write maybe three or four lines of decent verse. This is to be generous. Although, he was a very fine – and always entertaining – prose writer and his edifice of occultism can be seen as a remarkable creative endeavour in toto. He also turned his hand to painting, adopting a sort of expressionist style. Examples can be seen below. And, in fact, they are rather good. Of recent times they have attracted the attention of the art cognoscenti, and rightly so for they are quirky, mysterious, potent, raw, amongst other qualities. They illustrate the strength and power of Mr Crowley’s personality and his unique, though always dark, vision. 

Landscape with Coral & Jade Pagodas. One of Crowley's better paintings. 

May Morning. A typically macabre theme. Crowley wrote: "The painting represents the dawning of the day following a witches' celebration as described in Faust. The witch is hanged, as she deserves, and the satyr looks out from behind a tree."

The moon, study for the tarot. It is a great pity that Crowley did not complete a set of images for tarot designs. He later employed the services of Lady Freda Harris and instructed her to design his tarot cards, subsequently published as the 'Thoth' deck. Although Lady Harris' designs are widely admired, the present author finds them typical of a type of turgid modernism that is not to his taste. Crowley's own tarot paintings are somewhat more interesting and would have revealed much more of his magickal personality. 

Van Gogh-like expressionism. Despite being derivative, it is nonetheless a potent painting, a vision driven by the overtly phallic-solar cultus that Mr Crowley constructed around himself.

Self-Portrait. Like most self-depictions, this flatters him. He was actually a flabby Englishman wiuth beady eyes and a whiney high-pitched voice - here depicted as a phallic-headed hero from another dimension. 

Ladies of the Liberal Club

Crowley's vicious satires of middle-class respectability are always entertaining and incisive. (Read, for example, his short work entitled 'How to Fake Horoscopes'). He shows a piercing ability to stare into the empty pit of blank souls. In that respect, there is something to be said for this portrait of 'Ladies of the Liberal Club'. Such ladies populate liberal clubs to this day! 

The BABALON door. Many of Crowley's paintings remain on the doors and walls at his so-called 'Abbey of Thelema' in Cefalu, Sicily, which is today dilapidated and ramshackle. It is a pity - and quite remarkable - that no great effort has been made to preserve these works. 

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FRITHJOF SCHUON

The Swiss-French Soofi religionist Monsieur Schuon was a trained fabric designer by profession, and so he brought a degree of artistic expertise to his painting lacking in the case of the two other completely amateur artists considered above. His work is more polished and technically competent, but also far less revealing for all of that. It is steady and controlled, iconographic rather than expressive. Schuon relocated to Bloomington Indiana in the 1980s to take up residence as pontificating guru to a community of well-to-do Americans. But he had always felt a strong affinity for the American native traditions, and the relocation brought him into contact with representatives of the Plains Indians. This becomes the central preoccupation of his paintings, with a particular emphasis on naked Indian girls rationalized as a metaphysical concern for the ‘Divine Feminine’. 

Schuon penchant for nudism led him into morally dangerous terrain, however, and he was, late in the piece, investigated for inappropriate dealings with minors. All charges were dismissed, but critics maintain that his well-to-do clientele used their wealth to rescue him from legal proceedings. There are, even so, photographs circulating privately on the Internet – always subject to legal threats by the same wealthy followers – of Monsieur Schuon and his various wives (vertical and horizontal) involved in some odd naked antics which suggest at very least that things became quite strange down there in Bloomington towards the end of his life. There is a stolid dignity in his paintings – a quality the present author admires – although it must be admitted that it is, all up, just a passable imitation of Gaugin (who also had a thing for the exotic flesh of native girls.) Some of the more explicit paintings of Schuon, which the present author has seen, and which betray a somewhat lurid eye are not easily found on the Internet (again because his followers keep a very tight control upon his legacy.) He is, finally, a painter of quasi-Amer-Indian icons with New Age appeal. 

It is surprising that there is so little Mohammadan content in his work, but it underlines the fact that, once in Bloomington, the interests of the self-initiated ‘Sheihk Jesus’ shifted increasingly to a neo-paganism of his own invention, complete with quasi-Indian rituals and pow-wows, and drifted further and further from any mainstream version of Soofism. The present author has been a reader of Schuon's works, and values them in many respects, and admires many of his paintings too. Like Evola and Crowley as well, Schuon fancied himself as a poet. Like them, his poems are terrible. 

The flatness and above all the silence of these works - well-rendered, it must be said - is strongly reminiscent of the works of Gaugin (with both artists showing a strong philosophical debt to Rousseau's "noble savage" ideology.)

Although not obvious in this work, Schuon's depictions of the horned elk are conceived as types of self-portraits. He took the elk as a "totem" in the Indian manner and the proud male elk guarding the females and young of the herd was Schuon's fantasy of his role as leader of his followers in Bloomington. There is a series of such works with this sub-text. 

Laylat al-Qadr. The Night of Power. One of the few overtly Mohammadan paintings in the oeuvre of Monsieur Schuon. He spent time in the company of Soofis in North Africa and through those associations later promoted himself as "Shayk Isa (Jesus)", although his credentials and claims to a genuine Soofi lineage are widely disputed. 

The Virgin Mary meets Pocahontas - a quintessentially Schuonian conflation. 

Schuon was a lover of the feminine, and should not be faulted for that. His depictions of the female form show great insight into feminine archetypes and the contemplative nature of female beauty. This, more than the "noble savage" theme, is one of the strongest recommendations for Schuon's paintings in the opinion of the present writer. 

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Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Themes in Nikolai Astrup

“At last, Nikolai Astrup is getting the recognition he deserves!” This was the attitude widely promulgated among the art fraternity when the work of the early XXth century Norwegian painter was shown in London for the first time not long ago. What they meant, of course, was that – at last – the Norwegian master, always acclaimed in his native land and revered by Norwegian nationalists but shamefully ignored everywhere else, was being recognized by important Guardian-reading cosmopolitan sophisticates like themselves. Is there any more loathsome, unctuous group of self-regarding parasites than the modern art establishment? When they “discover” an artist – whom they had previously neglected - it is like the artist is suddenly blessed with amazing good fortune. This is now the fate of poor Astrup. Namedroppers are suddenly dropping his name at every exhibition opening from London to Berlin. This is after nearly a century of him remaining blissfully to one side of mainstream European art, a well-kept secret among discerning outsiders.

What Astrup has always remained outside of is the puerile art orthodoxy that elevated and celebrated the neurotic modernist decadence of Astrup’s fellow Norwegian, Edvard Munch. Astrup despised Munch. The two artists – contemporaries – could hardly have had more opposing interests. Munch was a representative of dreary, expressionist, urban existential angst. Astrup, rather, was a rural conservative, religious, a farmer, a father of eight children to a child bride, an artist on a quest for an authentic, luminous visual language for his nation and his folk heritage. Munch became a modernist icon. Astrup was loved by his countrymen but dismissed as “neo-romantic” beyond Norway’s borders, and as far as the European establishment was concerned he sank into oblivion. They have belatedly “found” him again, and now he is all the rage. “You don’t know Astrup? Oh, please!”

His “discovery” is, all the same, timely. It comes as a new nationalist consciousness is returning to Europe after cracks – or yawning chasms – have appeared in the European Union’s Marxist multicultural project. Faced with the disintegration of their distinctive cultures into an egalitarian sludge, Europeans are reawakening to the value of identity, tradition and heritage. In this context, an artist such as Astrup comes into his own. His work embodies the values of the New Right: family, soil, work, kinship, nation, blood, beauty, cosmic integrity, the mystique and communion of ancient custom. Let us witness some examples:

The primary traditional value celebrated in the works of Astrup is location. Other than a few brief trips abroad, he spent the whole of his short life living on a farm on the shores of a Norwegian lake (Jølstravatnet) and the farm itself, the lake, mountains and scenery thereabouts, along with his family, form almost the entire subject matter of his art. It is an art of rootedness and locale. The picture, above, is the farm where he lived with his wife and eight children. (Note the cold frames in the garden.) 

He often painted the same scene from exactly the same view at different times of the year or day. Again: location. And the cyclic passage of time. The cycle of the year. One of the main concerns of his work is the integration of traditional man with the cosmos. Traditional man is rooted in location, but also in the cycles of time. Modern, decadent man - celebrated in the endorsed modernist art of Munch and co - is essentially non-geographical and a-temporal, a celebration of the spurious "freedom" of being adrift. Astrup's work is the precise opposite. Location is concrete, steady, permanent. It is an art of cosmic integration. This is the metaphysics of his landscapes, which are among the most beautiful and lyrical by any XXth century European painter:

Astrup was not naif; he was fully informed about the movements in modern art. He very deliberately chose to turn his back on them and to remain at Jølstravatnet immersed in a simple rural life with his family. He has a remarkably sure sense of his own style and what he wants to paint. He is, above all, grounded. There is no sense of the erratic, the decadent, the experimental. This is an artist who knows what he loves: his family, his country. It is not an art of rootlessness and inner conflict. 

The heavy lines, solidity and rich colours that Astrup brings to nordic landscapes is strongly reminiscent of the style of Nicholas Roerich.  But whereas Roerich - a Russian painting in Tibet and the Himalayas - looked to Boodhism, Astrup's landscapes are embued with a darker and more primeval magick. Many of his landscapes are haunted with ghostly figures of a former age. These are not secular, sanitized landscapes - they are not about land as property. There is a sense of a dark anima, a spirit of the land, much like the kami of Japan. 

A landscape haunted by the figure of corn stores

The spirituality in Astrup's work is a folk spirituality. Insofar as he is religious, his religion is cosmic, not moral or sentimental. His depictions of pagan festivals are probably his best known works in modern Norway:

Midsummer Night. Astrup painted many depictions of the midsummer bonfire festival, a celebration of ancient Norway's pagan roots. Biographies never fail to mention the fact that his father, a Christian pastor, frowned upon such festivities and forebad his children to attend them. As an adult Astrup took particular delight in them, although often in these paintings there is a lone figure watching the festivities from afar. We see people (folk) engaged in communion with the land and with the haunted spirit of the land. Through these festivals they engage with and become part of the great cycles of land and sky. Fire, the primal human element. 

It is in this landscape that man must live. Much of Astrup's art concerns agriculture, farming and domestic rural life - landscapes with men and women at work. The landscape is not always empty. 

Again, this is a celebration of traditional values: labour, soil, simplicity. And again, Astrup liked to underline the cycle of the seasons - the cosmic integration of rural labour - by painting the same scene, from the same viewpoint, several times:

A personal favourite of the present author. Picking rhubarb.

Then there is family and kinship. These are some of the most deeply conservative and most beautiful of Astrup's paintings. The artist married a young women, barely fifteen years old, and fathered eight children with her. Family, marriage and kinship are the human cosmos within the context of the land and the sky.  

Finally, interior and domestic scenes, and still life. The traditional love of the domestic world and its fruits, domestic economy, is a constant theme in Astrup's work. 

Astrup died quite young, in his late forties, from respiratory disease. But he was a prolific painter. The samples provided on this current page should be enough to demonstrate what a great artist he was and how the neglect to which he has been subject by the wider art establishment must rate as one of the scandals of modern art - and how insulting is his recent "rediscovery". Readers are invited to compare his work to that of Munch. Astrup complained that anything Munch did - any lousy squiggle, any rough sketch - was hailed as a masterpiece, while Astrup himself remained ignored. This injustice was entirely ideological. Munch pandered to the tastes of the liberal art establishment. Astrup, on the other hand, was a conservative whose paintings celebrated deeply conservative themes. His works became loved in traditional Norway, but they were too conservative for the cosmopolitan elites. These same elites, let us note, have of recent times undermined traditional life in Norway, as elsewhere, mainly through the strategy of mass immigration. The tensions unleashed by this strategy were seen in the political killings perpetrated by the nationalist extremist Anders Behring Breivik. Today, Norwegian society is increasingly torn. It is in this context that Astrup is being "rediscovered" and in this context his work and the themes he celebrates takes on a new poignancy and relevance. He emerges as one of the great conservative painters - in theme rather than style - of the modern era. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black