Faceless art -- spawned in slime?

firemaiden

In the thread on colors, Alobar quoted some nasty bits from Correspondance between Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris (website found for us by Macavity.) It got me to thinking, and I thought I would take the discussion into a new thread.

In a letter to Frieda Harris dated 19 December, 1939, Crowley addresses her reluctance to paint faces, and rails against the trend toward facelessness in modern art.

Your feeling about having no forms and faces is merely symptomatic of modern soul-sickness. It is lack of confidence in one's creative powers. It is the root of homo-sexuality as understood in this country and of all these crazy movements, the Neo-Thomists, and the Buchmanites and the Dadaists and the Surrealists. Picasso took it far enough; he tried to paint a chair which could not be any particular chair, and must therefore have no colour and no form, but as every chair, in order to be a chair, must have a support for the human frame, he did a horizontal line. But this is metaphysics and not art; all these half-sexed, half-witted people, sicklied o'er with the pale caste of thought, I cannot believe that any of them will ever command either the Exeter, the Ajax or the Achilles, and any man who is not potentially capable of doing that, is not a man at all; he may be some kind of pudding, and I hold no brief against puddings, but all these people who resent simplicity resent manhood, they weave their own onanistic web of nastiness; these are the shells cast off from the Tree of Life, these are the larvea of abomination....
Click to expand...


Certainly strong words of condemnation! (I wonder if he was targetting a certain painter in particular with whom he might have had a personal dispute...) I must admit, that despite the venim here, I find the language ooooh, so delicious and riotously funny!"

(I admit, I would not like to be the object of his scorn, but scorn and denigration aside, the language is on a par with French poets like Lautréamont and Baudelaire -- -- "the larvae of abomination" ooooooo, it's positively delicious...it comes straight out of Baudelaire's "Fleurs de Mal" (The Flowers of Evil) Don't forget, the French eat snails...)

I also think it is fascinating that the faces were so important to him, and that they are nevertheless so absent from the deck. Have a riffle through the seventy-eight paintings, you will see, there are but two who have eyes: the Fool's (freaky) eyes are alive and open, and focussed directly on the viewer, and XX-the Aeon shows open eyes looking up. (Well, perhaps also the Queen of Swords and the Prince of Wands have eyes, but they are teeny tiny...) (Well, okay, the ass-devil and the snake also have seeing eyes...but--) All the other figures are strategically turned away so as to have no face at all, or they are looking down, or their eyes are closed. The Magician has a face, but his open eyes are empty - like those of a marble statue--

Compare this to the faces in the Marseilles! How powerfully the human expressions leap off the cards!

I agree there is an aspect of soul-less-ness in the faceless art. It bespeaks of alienation, and emptiness.

Or does it? There is the other school of thought, that the wooden marionette is the most expressive medium, the wood, as empty vessel, allows the viewer to project his own emotions therein....some may find the pure absence of expression allows for an infinity of (projected) expression.

What do you think?
 

Le_Corsair

I've recently discovered this cool old song, sung by It's A Beautiful Day:

There's a girl in my room and her face on the wall with no eyes.
There's a girl in my room and her face on the wall with no eyes.
Girl with no eyes,
who can she be?
Girl with no eyes,
she's looking at me.

There's a girl in my room and her face on the wall with no eyes.
If I make a sound she'll know that I'm stirring inside.
If I make a sound she'll know that I'm trying to hide.

Girl with no eyes,
who can she be?
Girl with no eyes,
she's looking at me.
Beautiful girl,
who does she see?
Beautiful girl,
she seems to be staring.

There's more, but that is spooky enough, I think.

Bob :THERM
 

Diana

firemaiden: Unfortunately, I have had to send you by Private Messaging my response to your question "What do you think?"

I think if I posted it here, it would break the forum rules and guidelines.
 

firemaiden

Cool song, Le Corsair.

My dearest Diana I think you flatter yourself concerning your ability to offend....

I just want to point out how ironic it is that the human figures are de-humanised in facelessness, while the animals are vividly alive. The ass, or moose, or wildebeast, or whatever the hey that creature is on the Devil card is positively glowing with mirth. I like him. :)
 

firemaiden

hmmm... this portrait suggests several things:


  • 1) Mr. C had very abominable drawing skills and only a faint knowledge of anatomy.

    2). He was fully aware that he was his head was overblown and "full of it".

    3). He was abducted by aliens.

I wonder if our resident expert in the sequinned hat might comment on the significance of downcast eyes.

P.S. The alternative title for this thread before I changed it, was going to be "Aleister Crowley, Man or Pudding?"
 

Aoife

firemaiden said:
hmmm... this portrait suggests several things:


  • 1) Mr. C had very abominable drawing skills and only a faint knowledge of anatomy.
Click to expand...


  • Yes but...... have you noticed how he styles the first letter of his first name?
 

firemaiden

Ah, yes indeed, his own signature seems to agree with Alobar's assessement,
what a prick! his unabashed arrogance on full display here, i think (but oh how i wish he could come over for dinner! ).
Click to expand...

But you are all very bad, and I am giving you failing grades, you are focussing on whether Mr. Crowley was a man or a pudding, and you are not addressing my question about faceless art. After all the issue is, he wanted more faces and Lady Harris wanted fewer. How do you feel about the faceless-ness of the art? Does it invite you to read more? or less into the cards? Do you agree with Mr. C that there is an aspect of soul-lessness to formless and faceless art?
 

firemaiden

Impartial Justice or -- demon of malignant darkness?

Further down in the letter he writes more about faces, he is fighting with Harris to put a face on the Justice Card (Adjustement), it seems:
I must emphasise that this fear of faces is an appalling symptom of cowardice. It is surely a natural instinct to connect expression with moral ideas, and it is moral ideas, or more correctly magical ideas, that you are out to illustrate.

**It did not matter so much in this particular card because of the tradition of Justice being blind, but on the other hand, the masking of the face suggests deceit which is the absolute opposite of the intention of the card; it was the familiars of the Inquisition, it was the Vehmgericht that administered what they called Justice, hooded.**

Impartiality is a lovely idea, but it doesn't get you very far; if the impartial person may be impersonated by a demon of malignant darkness.
Click to expand...


(emphasis mine)

It seems he didn't like her rendition of Justice - masked. It is the very opposite of the intention of the card, he says, suggesting the cruel injustice of the Inquisition and the Vehmgericht (the medieval German equivalent of the Stasi, I guess) Yet Frieda's vision prevailed, didn't it!

Do you see Adjustment as a portrayal of impartial justice? or does the card rather suggest the "demon of malignant darkness?"
 

hindu_fetish

Crowley's inanity

The predominant facelessness of the Thoth paintings is notable and, arguably, symptomatic of modernism's "soul sickness" (i.e. western personality's fragmentation and post WWI psycho-philosophical disintegration).

In this Tarotista's view-- and presumably Crowley's-- there is no body part on par with the face that so persuasively presents an individual as a discrete entity possessing a variety of characteristics within a personal unicity. In fact, calling the face a body part seems grossly inaccurate. Thus, when Crowley laments the lack of facial visages in he and Harris' proposed Tarot, it seems he laments the loss of the apparent force of personality that would otherwise have been present through that magic that a face works on its beholder. And that he sees as soul sick and weak.

Looking around at the modern art landscape contemporary to him, he, in my view, correctly surmised that that type of representation was going out of style as metaphysical discontent prevailed in the minds of artists. But that makes since when it is acknowledged that culturally Europe had broken apart at the seems in the Great War and was on its way to another horrifically traumatic passage in WWII. To say the f'ing least.

So, I hear his gripe. But where he takes it is silly. Ascribing sexual virilence to this is pathetic straight-white-guy bullcrap. He ends up sounding like Jerry Fallwell in conversation with Pat Robertson blaming the 9-11 attack on gays, lesbians and the ACLU. What's more, the trajectory of visual art through post modernism, pop and and the end-of-criticism did not see an eradication of the human face due to an overly fey, homo influence. Go to Sante Fe, walk Canyon Road and tell me the face is over in art.

More specifically, the fact is that gay influenced portraiture is worshipful of every physical human facet it can sketch. The face especially. The Hollywood face-- male or female-- especially especially.

Anyway. I think he just wanted as much detail as he could get in the cards and she didn't want to do the work. Which would have been monumental.

And-- someone help-- wasn't Crowley bi? Didn't have a several years' long affair with his occult mentor? Classic Tory-style British hypocrisy.

I love the cards, but I swear, the more I find out about Crowley, the more I have to forget who made them when I turn to them in important moments.
 
Zodiacal twist thoth question