ravenest said:
Do you like Crowley's artwork? I dont, I think it's terrible! Although I dont mind the 3 monks carring the dead goat in the snowstorm to somewhere.
At least his art reflects his philosophy of art.
"Art is to be studied for and by one's solitary self; any teaching soever is rank poison."
("Magick Without Tears", Letter 72 ("Education")(Falcon Press edition, (1982) p. 436))
And this from a Decatur, GA newspaper article about Crowley, undated but probably from the fall of 1918, titled "Poet-Painter Who Studied Magic Under Indian Savants Visits Atlanta." (Crowley was staying with William Seabrook and his wife Kate; see Symonds "The Beast 666" pp. 243-244 (= "King of the Shadow Realm" p. 240. Symonds notes this article and quotes another passage, but does not name the newspaper.)
Crowley recounts how he began to paint:
"As a change from supernatural to everyday things Mr. Crowley showed some of his paintings, but it wasn't such a change as that. As he explained recently in the New York Evening World, he is, in the way of painting, a 'subconscious impressionist.'
"When he came to New York in 1915, he established a radical magazine in Greenwich Village called the 'International.' But he couldn't find any artist who could draw the sort of covers he wanted.
"'I got so disgusted I decided to draw the covers myself,' he said. 'I'd never studied art and never painted a picture in my life. But I got so interested in the work that I decided to give up the editorship of the magazine and to go in for art.'
"'Whatever you do, don't call me a futurist or cubist. My art really is subconscious or automatic. I'll tell you why. When I found I couldn't paint a portrait, I didn't decide to go abroad and study for thirty or forty years.
"'Instead, I walked up to a blank canvas one day and, standing very close to it, I placed the wet brush before it and shut my eyes. I had no preconceived idea of what I was going to paint. My hand simply moved automatically over the canvas.
"'I don't know how long I worked in that subconscious way, but you can imagine my astonishment when I found I had painted a likeness of a friend whom I hadn't seen in many years. It was that person's dead soul I had painted. I have it around my studio somewhere.'
"He was referring to the painting."
The earliest dated indication I can find of Crowley doing artwork is the cover of the International, October 1917. It is a sketch of two nude women holding up the title banner "The International," signed "Clara Tise" (or Tige).
Ross