Art and the Theosophical Movement

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Art as an expression of spirituality is important to the Theosophical Movement. This article summarizes the relationship between Theosophists and the visual fine arts of painting, drawing, ceramics, and sculpture. See also:

Music and the Theosophical Movement

Performing Arts and the Theosophical Movement

Literature and the Theosophical Movement

Popular Culture and the Theosophical Movement

Occult fiction

Theosophists on art

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

Thoreau pointed out that there are artists in life, persons who can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful to those with whom they come in contact. We claim that there are adepts, masters in life who make it divine, as in all other arts. Is it not the greatest art of all, this which affects the very atmosphere in which we live? That it is the most important is seen at once, when we remember that every person who draws the breath of life affects the mental and moral atmosphere of the world, and helps to colour the day for those about him. Those who do not help to elevate the thoughts and lives of others must of necessity either paralyse them by indifference, or actively drag them down. When this point is reached, then the art of life is converted into the science of death; we see the black magician at work. And no one can be quite inactive. Although many bad books and pictures are produced, still not everyone who is incapable of writing or painting well insists on doing so badly. Imagine the result if they were to! Yet so it is in life. Everyone lives, and thinks, and speaks. If all our readers who have any sympathy with [the journal] Lucifer endeavoured to learn the art of making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to be hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but to commence the Herculean task at once, then 1888, however unlucky a year, would have been fitly ushered in by the gleaming star.

Art movements and groups associated with Theosophists

Transcendental Painting Group

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The Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) was a spiritualist abstract art movement founded in New Mexico in 1938. The group consisted of artists who wanted to infuse spiritual qualities in abstraction with concepts from Theosophy, Agni Yoga, and Zen Buddhism.

Mission

The purpose of the TPG, as set forth in a manifesto, was ”to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual.”

Members

Raymond Jonson (1891-1982) Co-founder of the TPG. Modernist painter and educator at the University of New Mexico

Emil Bisttram (1895-1976) Co-founder of the TPG. Hungarian born influential painter who founded the Taos School of Art

Lawren Harris (1885-1970) Well known Canadian painter who joined the TPG in 1938 while living in New Mexico. He was forced to return to Canada in 1940 when wartime regulations prevented him from transferring Canadian currency out of the country.

Agnes Pelton (1881-1961) - Oldest member of the group who was voted in as a member in absentia because she was living in Cathedral City, CA at the time.

Florence Miller-Pierce (1918-2007)- Student of Emil Bisttram. She was the youngest member of the TPG and exposed to Theosophy through acquaintances. She married fellow artist Horace-Towner Pierce.

Horace Towner-Pierce (1916-1958) - Student of Emil Bisttram. Used Dynamic Symmetry for a series of drawings dedicated to non-objective painting. He was interested in animating his work with music from Dane Rudhyar, believing film was the future.

Robert Gribboek (1906-1971) - Student of Emil Bisttram. After spending a few years in New Mexico, he moved to California to work as an artist for Warner Brothers.

William Lumpkins (1909-2000) - Treasurer of TPG and the only member native to New Mexico. Beginning in the 1930s, he painted visionary works of abstract expressionism.

Stuart Walker (1904-1940) originally, from Indiana, Walker started out as a naturalistic painter and turned his attention to abstraction after he moved to New Mexico. He passed away at the age of thirty-five.

Ed Garman (1914-2004) - Joined the TPG when Lawren Harris went back to Canada. With the start of World War II, however, he left NM to serve in the Navy in 1942. The war had a profound influence on his abstractions.

Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985) and Alfred Morang (1901-1958) provided intellectual theory and critiques to the group.

Influence of Theosophy

Nicholas Roerich had a very strong influence on Raymond Jonson and Emil Bisttram. In 1921, Jonson met Nicholas Roerich at the Art Institute of Chicago during a Roerich exhibition. (Footnote Jonson portal). Bisttram’s interest in Dynamic Symmetry led him to the teachings of Roerich, P.D. Ouspensky, and H.P. Blavatsky. Bisttram taught at Roerich’s Master Institute of United Arts in New York before moving to Taos and starting his own school in 1932. (Appollo p. 19). Both participated in Cor Ardens (flaming heart), a group founded by Roerich dedicated to “universal expression.” (Fn “Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art” by Maurice Tuchman, The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, p. 43, 1986). Other members of the group, such as Agnes Pelton, were profoundly impacted by Roerich’s Agni Yoga.

Although each member had a slightly different perspective, they all wanted to reach beyond the material world to develop art that was engaging, meditative, and soulful (footnote - Michael Duncan; Another World TPG video). This lined up with the teachings of Theosophy and the ancient wisdom. In addition to theosophical writings such as Thought Forms, Wassily Kandinsky’s book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), which makes numerous references to Theosophy, had a strong influence on members.

This spiritual insight inspired TPG members to use universal symbols and abstract forms to illuminate the transcendent spirit present in all beings, nature, and the cosmos (appollo magazine p. 7). Their work served a higher purpose with technical mastery to evoke a feeling of transcendence in those who viewed their art. (Apollo magazine, p. 11)

Although all TPG members were versed in Theosophy, only Lawren Harris was a member of the Theosophical Society (in Canada).

Artists influenced by Theosophy

Theosophical Society Founders Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and William Quan Judge were quite skilled in drawing. The arts have always been appreciated by Theosophists as a means of expressing spirituality.

• Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist and mystic who painted some of the earliest abstract art.
• A. Theodore Bondy was an American Theosophist known internationally as a calligrapher and illustrator.
• Claude Fayette Bragdon was a Theosophist from Rochester, New York who is known for his architecture, stage sets, and writings.
• Maurice Braun was a Hungarian-American artist of the Point Loma community, noted for his landscapes of California.
• Burton Callicott was an art professor from Memphis, Tennessee who incorporated Theosophical concepts into his paintings and drawings.
• Jean Delville was a Belgian symbolist painter, author, and teacher; he was the first General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in Belgium.
• Harold E. Forgostein was and American artist and teacher, and Guardian-in-Chief of the Temple of the People.
• Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn was a Dutch artist and Theosophist. She is best known as the founder of the Eranos Foundation that holds annual conferences of scholars.
• Lawren Stewart Harris was a Canadian painter in the Group of Seven who pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style in the early twentieth century. He was a member of the Toronto Lodge.
• Monsieur Harrisse was a French amateur artist who drew the first portrait of Master Morya in black and white crayons at The "Lamasery" in New York.
• Z. Vanessa Helder was an American artist from the Pacific Northwest who came from a family of Theosophists.
• Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school.
• Wassily Kandinskywas a Russian abstract expressionist painter who was heavily influenced by Theosophy. He wrote a hugely influential book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and taught at the Bauhaus.
• Paul Klee was a Swiss-German artist influenced by Theosophy and by the art movements of Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism.
• J. Augustus Knapp was an American Theosophist and artist best known for his superb illustrations of Manly P. Hall's masterwork The Secret Teachings of All Ages and many works of science fiction and fantasy.
• Don Kruse is an art professor at Indiana University at Fort Wayne. His paintings draw on mythological images, popular art such as comic strips, and the works of master artists, and he is a life member of the Theosophical Society in America.
• Thomas Le Clear was a prominent American painter who was part of the circle of friends of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in New York City.
• Boleslaw Leitgeber was a Polish artist, writer, and diplomat who spent several years at the Adyar campus of the Theosophical Society.
• Reginald Machell was an English painter whose best-known work is The Path. He joined the Theosophical Society after meeting Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in London. Later, at the Point Loma community, he painted, wrote, and designed furniture.
• Piet Mondrian was an influential Dutch painter, and one of the founders of the Dutch modern movement De Stijl.
• Louise A. Off was a Theosophist and artist in California,s best known for becoming the editor of The New Californian.
• William R. O'Donovan was a distinguished American sculptor and art critic who made a bronze medallion of Mme. Blavatsky, whom he visited often in New York.
• James S. Perkins was a commercial artist and author of several books. He served as President of the Theosophical Society in America and as Vice President of the international Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India for ten years beginning in 1961.
• Erling Roberts was an English-American painter known for his portrait of Charles Webster Leadbeater.
• Nicholas Roerich was a Russian painter, theatrical designer, and writer best known for his mystical paintings of the Himalayas. He and his wife Helena were members of the Theosophical Society.
• Dane Rudhyar was a French-American composer, writer, artist, and astrologer who was involved with the Theosophical Movement.
• George William Russell was an Irish poet, painter and essayist who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.). He was a Theosophist, a political activist and a key figure in the Irish Literary Renaissance.
• Hermann Schmiechen was a German artist who painted portraits of the Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya, and also of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. While he lived in England from 1884-1895, he was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and painted members of the British aristocracy.
• Rona Scott-Abbott was a talented and prolific artist, active in the Theosophical Society in Australia and in the Theosophical Order of Service.
• Georgine Shillard-Smith, was an American artist and arts patron, and a member of the Theosophical Society in America. She was responsible for commissioning the Olcott murals.
• Isabelle de Steiger was one of the earliest English Theosophists – an occultist, painter, and writer. Many of her paintings were occult works related to her participation in the Golden Dawn.
• Edward Wimbridge was an engraver who became one of the earliest English members of the Theosophical Society.
• Beatrice Wood was an American ceramicist and writer who was influential in the Avant Garde movement. She was a life member of the Theosophical Society in America.
• Cabot Yerxa was an artist who established a colony in Desert Hot Springs, California. He was a member of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena), then based in Covina, and later of the Theosophical Society in America.
• Agnes Pelton was an American modernist painter known for her desert landscapes and visionary abstract compositions, who was influenced by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater, and Manly Palmer Hall.
• John Duncan (1866–1945) was a Scottish symbolist painter, Theosophist, and prominent figure in the Celtic Revival movement.

Other Theosophists who were skilled artists include Mary Gebhard; William Loftus Hare, an engraver; Harold Edward Hare; Charles J. Ryan; Brian Stonehouse; and Robert Vaughn.

Art works significant to Theosophists

• The Path by Reginald Machell.
• Gutzom Borglum portrait of H. P. Blavatsky.
• Murals at Olcott by Richard Blossom Farley. These murals in the headquarters reception hall of the Theosophical Society in America depict physical and spiritual evolution.

See also

• Artists

Additional resources

Articles

• “Effective Art”: Imaginal Worlds, Fohat, and Freedom by Jeff Durham
• Beauty Is Not Optional by Kathryn Gann
• Theosophy and the Emergence of Modern Abstract Art by Kathleen Hall
• British Pre-Raphaelites and the Question of Reincarnation by Lynda Harris
• Jean Delville: Painting, Spirituality, and the Esoteric by Lynda Harris
• Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music by Gary Lachman
• The Symbolic Art of Charles Rennie MacKintosh by Alan Senior
• Theosophy and Art at Theosopedia
• Theosophy and the Emergence of Modern Abstract Art by Kathleen Hall
• Painting the Southern Border by Massimo Introvigne
• Theosophical Music by Kurt Leland

Video

• Buddhist Art at the Theosophical Society in America. A tour of the Buddhist art in the L. W. Rogers Building, as described by Buddhist scholar Glenn Mullin.
• "Murals at Olcott: Discover the Rich History and Symbolism of a Breathtaking Work of Art" is a video presentation of murals in the L. W. Rogers Building.

Bibliographies

• Bibliography on Arts and Music from the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library.

Websites

• Theosophy & Arts: the Spiritual in Art from Luigi Pericle Study Center. English and Italian articles on the arts.
• Theosophical Art Facebook page.

Books

• McFarlane, Jenny. Concerning the Spiritual: The Influence of the Theosophical Society On Australian Artists, 1890-1934. Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012.