Lawren Harris and the Theosophical Appropriation of the National Tradition in Canada Massimo Introvigne (CESNUR) Ben Gurion University of the Negev December 18, 2013 A Record Sale for a Sketch On November 26, 2009 the above sketch by the Canadian painter Lawren Stewart Harris (1885-1970) was sold for the record figure (for a sketch) of 3,5 million Canadian dollars. Harris was one among many painters who were also followers of Theosophy Theosophy Rediscovered  Only a few specialized academics studied Theosophy before 1970. Then, art historian Sixten Ringbom (top, 1935-1992) published a pioneer study, The Sounding Cosmos, claiming that Theosophy had a decisive influence on Kandinsky and modern abstract art  In 1983, Linda Dalrymple Henderson (bottom) published the first edition of her landmark study The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidan Geometry in Modern Art, where she noted how Theosophists contributed to explore the idea of a spatial (rather than temporal) fourth dimension, which was crucially influential on modern art An Explosion of Scholarly Interest  Two large exhibitions, The Spiritual in Art (Los Angeles 1986) and Okkultismus und Avantgarde (Frankfurt 1995), popularized the connection between Theosophy and modern art for a larger audience  In 2013, the conference Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy and the Arts in the Modern World at the University of Amsterdam included some 50 papers, with an audience of 250 scholars plus some 2,000 connected via streaming from all over the world  There is an explosion of sort of scholarly interest in the question why a comparatively small movement such as Theosophy had such a great impact on modern visual arts Theosophy and the Arts Three Stages: Didactic Symbolic Abstract Didactic stage: Schmiechen  There is no evidence that Blavatsky was personally interested in avant-garde modern art. She seems to have rather favored a didactic art, illustrating through a quite conventional style the tenets of Theosophy. German artist Hermann Schmiechen (18551895), who in 1884 painted portraits of Blavatsky (left) and of Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya (right) under directions of Blavatsky and the Masters themselves, is an early example of this style Didactic Stage: Machell  Towards the end of her life, Blavatsky befriended British painter Reginald Willoughby Machell (1854-1927), who was also responsible for the design of the funerary urn for her ashes and in 1900 moved to the Theosophical colony of Lomaland, in California  Machell, also a notable wood carver (right), is mostly famous for the beloved Theosophical icon The Path (left) Symbolist Stage: Jean Delville  The second stage, Symbolism, of the Theosophical art emerged in Belgium around Jean Delville (1867-1952; see his School of Plato, 1898), a member of the circle who first introduced the Theosophical Society into Belgium Symbolism and Theosophy in Europe  The influence of Symbolists connected with Theosophy was felt throughout Europe. In Bulgaria (Nikolai Rainov, 1889-1954), Poland (Kazimierz Stabrowski, 18691929), Ireland (George William Russell, Æ, 18671935: Faeries in a Mountain Cavern, right), early leaders of the Theosophical Society were Symbolist artists  In France Paul Sérusier (1864-1927: The Incantation, left), the leader of the Nabis, was also a member of the Theosophical Society Abstract Stage - Kupka  Theosophy acted in some instances as a catalyst in the transition from Symbolism to abstract art  We can follow this process from Symbolism (The Way of Silence, 19001903, above) to abstract art (Amorpha, 1912, below) in the career of the Czech painter František Kupka (1871-1957), who was interested in both Theosophy and Spiritualism, and even worked as a young man as a professional Spiritualist medium Abstract stage: Kandinsky, Malevich  Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944: see his first abstract watercolor, 1910, left) explored Theosophy for several years, as evidenced in his influential manifesto Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912)  In Russia (and elsewhere), several artists were influenced by Theosophy through Pyotr D. Ouspensky (1878-1947). Among those who read Ouspensky was Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935; right: Suprematist Composition, 1916) Piet Mondrian  The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) joined the Theosophical Society in 1909  He made the transition, quite typical of Theosophical painters, from Symbolism to abstract art  Mondrian created «neo-plasticism», a form of abstract art (see Composition in Yellow, Blue, and Red, right) that he called in 1922 «theosophical art in the true sense of the word» Hilma af Klint  Only recently, through several major exhibitions, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) has been recognized as an important abstract painter. She lived in a small town in Sweden and asked that her paintings should not be shown until 20 years after her death  Af Klint was a Spiritualist who claimed to draw under the influence of the spirits. But she also studied Theosophy and Anthroposophy Thought-Forms  In 1901 the president of the Theosophical Society Annie Besant (1847-1933) and her associate Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934) published Thought-Forms, where they argued that thoughts and emotions have forms and colors, which a trained clairvoyant is able to recognize  Although Ringbom exaggerated its influence on modern art, Italian futurist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916)’s Dispositions of the Soul (above), is one of several paintings whose authors acknowledged the influence of ThoughtForms  Sounds have also forms and colors in Thought-Forms: see the thought-form of the music of Charles Gounod (18181893), below Lawren Stewart Harris (1885-1970)  He was born in Brantford (Ontario) on October 23, 1885 into a rich family  His father was a staunch Protestant. His mother, a Christian Scientist The German Connection  His rich family sent Harris to study art in Germany under Franz Skarbina (1849-1910: left), a leader of the German Secession  The Secession involved Harris in its cult of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840: right) and the Mystic North The Middle East Experience  Harris was able to further explore a religious world other than Christianity when he accompanied journalist Norman Duncan (18711916) to the Middle East. Harris produced fifty-nine drawings (right) to illustrate Duncan’s articles on his travels The Toronto Theosophical Society  Harris met Theosophy in 1908 through two longtime friends, journalist and art critic Frederick Broughton Housser (1889-1936, left), and playwright and director Roy Mitchell (1884-1944)  Harris did not formally join the Theosophical Society until 1923 due to the opposition of his wife Beatrice (Trixie) Phillips (1886-1962, right), a strict Protestant Early Urban Landscapes  Critics have noticed a Theosophical influence at work already in Harris’ early urban landscapes Tom Thomson  Soon Harris started traveling to Northern Canada, often in the company of Tom Thomson (1877-1917), a fellow painter he particularly appreciated. In 1917, Thompson died in a somewhat mysterious boat accident in the Canoe Lake, in Ontario’s Nipissing District, an event which deeply affected Harris The Group of Seven  In 1920, Harris founded the Group of Seven, immensely influential on Canadian modern art. Three of the Seven – Harris, James Edward Hervey MacDonald (1873-1932) and Arthur Lismer (1885-1969) – were members of the Theosophical Society and all were familiar with both Theosophy and Christian Science Vintage Harris  The Group of Seven period includes Harris’s most acclaimed masterpieces, such as North Shore, Lake Superior (1926) The Great Landscapes Emily Carr  Harris promoted British Columbia artist Emily Carr (1871-1945, left) and tried to convert her to Theosophy  She explored Theosophy and painted influenced by Theosophy for a while (Grey, right). Later, she rejected Blavatsky and went back to Christianity, although she remained friend with Harris Bess  Harris was in love with Bess Housser (left), a Christian Scientist and a Theosophist, and the wife of his friend Fred Housser, since 1920, when he painted her as «The Christian Scientist» (right)  In 1934, Harris divorced his wife Trixie and married Bess, whose husband Fred Housser married in turn his longtime lover, artist and theosophist Yvonne McKague (1898-1996), Bess’ best friend. The imbroglio caused such a scandal in Toronto that Lawren and Bess had to move to the U.S. The Société Anonyme  In the U.S. Harris deepened his interest for abstract art, after meeting Kandinsky and Katherine Dreier (1877-1852). Dreier, a patron of the art with Theosophical connections herself, through her Société Anonyme, of which Harris became the only Canadian member, had a crucial role in making Harris better known internationally Harris and Thought-Forms  In his American period, Harris rediscovered Thought-Forms, although he always maintained that true Theosophy is found in Blavatsky rather than in later books  See comparison between Harris’ Winter Comes from the Arctic to the Temperate Zone (1935, left), and the music of Wagner becoming shape and color in ThoughtForms (right) The Transcendental Painting Group  In the U.S. (at first in New Hampshire), Harris concluded that true Theosophical art should be abstract (Abstract no. 7, left)  He spent the years 1938-1940 in New Mexico, where he founded the Transcendental Painting Group and associated with other Theosophists, including Hungarian-born Emil Bisttram (1895-1976: Timecycle – Yellow, right), Raymond Jonson (1891-1982), and French astrologer and painter Dane Rudhyar (pseud. of Daniel Chennevière, 1895-1985) Nicholas Roerich  Several of the New Mexico «Transcendentalists», including Bisttram and Jonson, were followers of Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947: The Destruction of Atlantis, right), a Russian painter and a Theosophist whose wife Helena (1879-1955) claimed to receive messages from the Masters  Harris had already been invited by Roerich to exhibit at his Roerich Museum in New York in 1932, and found a congenial milieu among the New Mexico followers of the Russian The Vancouver Years  In 1940, Harris returned to Canada and settled in Vancouver, where he became friend with «Jock» Macdonald (1897-1969), a Theosophically oriented abstract painter influenced by Ouspensky (left)  He was honored as Canada’s national painter and continued with abstract art, rarely appreciated by critics. He died on January 29, 1970. The ashes of both Harris and Bess are now in the small cemetery in the garden of the McMichael Collection of Canadian Art in Kleinburg, Ontario (right) Aesthetic vs. Moral  Blavatsky’s lesson, according to Harris, allows us to reach the higher realm through beauty. «The moral attitude is sterile, uncreative, unadventurous, is led and does not lead. Whereas the esthetic attitude is creative and fertile and implies adventure at the very forefront of one’s being» Beauty’s Dual Movement  Beauty, Harris wrote, creates a dual movement. It takes us up to the divine, to a higher plan of reality. At the same time, beauty moves down towards «all the secret places in the soul; that leaves no dark corner, no twist of hypocrisy, no petty motive, to its own devices, but shows us the stark truth of our pretenses, and our personal perversions, for exactly what they are» Appropriating Canadian Nationalism  Harris uses Theosophy, and Blavatsky’s idea of a new sub-race emerging in America, as a tool to appropriate a pre-existing Canadian nationalism  «No man can roam or inhabit the Canadian North – Harris wrote – without it affecting him […]. The North will give him a different outlook from men in other lands» Canada vs. United States  Harris’ appropriated the nationalist idea that Canada was «cleaner» than the United States through both Theosophy and Christian Science. «Our population is sparse, the psychic atmosphere comparatively clean, whereas the States fill up and the masses crowd a heavy psychic blanket over nearly all the land» Abstract Art and the Nation  Harris insisted on the (quite controversial) idea that abstract art, in the new aesthetic inaugurated by Blavatsky, was the best tool to raise the nation’s spirit  His abstract art went through various phases: from one inspired by Kandinsky and Mondrian, to a second where he tried to apply the principles of Jay Hambidge (1867-1924)’s Dynamic symmetry. The third was «abstract expressionism», an expression popularized by Jackson Pollock (19121956) – who had himself some Theosophical connections – to which Harris gave a somewhat different meaning A Non-Symbolic Art  For Harris, a true Theosophical (and Canadian) art should be non-symbolic. Symbols involve a movement outside of the work of art, and he wants his audience to remain inside his paintings and feel the unique experience of becoming one with them  The influence of Christian Science is also at work. Trying to influence others, in this case through symbols, is a form of «animal magnetism», the most dangerous evil for a Christian Scientist Atma Buddhi Manas  For artists, all rules have exceptions. In 1960, at age 75 and when he was mostly painting untitled abstractions, Harris produced Atma Buddhi Manas, which resembles symbolic diagrams in early Theosophical literature  Atma, the absolute without differentiation, descends from above into Buddhi, in the center, the first differentiation, while below rests Manas, the consciousness of the plane where we are presently living Theosophical Art?  In a letter approved by her husband, Bess Harris (with Lawren in the 1960s, right) wrote in 1968 that the artist never intended to «paint the ‘dogmas and doctrines’ of the Theosophical Society»  Yet, Harris wrote at length on «Theosophical art», which for him was not about preaching doctrines but about experiencing a beauty leading to the highest realms «The True Artist Is an Occultist»  «From a spiritual point of view the creative artist, not the business man, typifies America. The creative life, which the real artist represents, is the Theosophical life as it was understood and expounded by the founders of the Theosophical Society. The true artist is an occultist» Fred Housser, art critic, Theosophist, and publicist of the Group of Seven, writing in The Canadian Theosophist, 1933