Divinatory Poems

Austin Osman Spare-Tarot-The Sun

1.
Strife is justice: perfect kiss, holy death,
golden ratio and mean, overflowing
cup filled with tears and other secretions
soon emptied however, drank to the last dregs
but still the thirst for love is not quenched.

2.
Wishing that the world was already burning,
all the better to build on the ruins
the man whose eyes blaze with the dying light
of a thousand million supernovas
tosses the match to start the conflagration.

3.
Like a character from an distant age
the chevalier cuts a tragic noble swath
captivating hearts and minds of all alike
but the attention means less than nothing
until that time amidst the crowds he sees

4.
You are the pearl, crowning perfection,
to possess you I desire ruination
I‘ll watch with delirious satisfaction
when you strike me with total destruction
for this pleasure is worth the damnation.

5.
It all adds up, the whole equals the sum
of its myriad variations and parts
you just have to stand at the right distance,
keep still, relax, the answer is apparent,
just will to dare to know the only Law.

The Art of AOS

 

Austin Osman Spare-Experiments in Relativity 1933

As I noted in my previous post on the artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare he achieved acclaim and relative success at a very early age, exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts at 17, before becoming unfashionable and fading into a near total obscurity . Yet he was to remain a highly prolific artist up until his death at 69, experimenting with an array of styles, mediums and techniques.

Spare’s mastery of line was never in dispute, however the paintings in the Experiments in Relativity series, for which he coined the term ‘siderealism’, as well as the more occult influenced  work show that Spare was an excellent colourist. The paintings of characters from the grimy streets of Southwark, London and exhibited in local pubs reveal his brilliance as a portraitist.

I have included below a cross section of Spare’s art throughout his career. He has been called a Symbolist, Proto-Surrealist and a precursor of Pop Art, but Spare was first and foremost his own creation.

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Austin Osman Spare’s Tarot

Austin Osman Spare-Inquirer Card-Tarot Deck c 1906

Most of the occult artist Austin Osman Spare‘s experiments in cartomancy were believed to be forever lost (including the ‘Surrealist Racing Forecast Card’ pack, a real shame as this covers a number of my favourite things: art, cards, the occult and gambling), however in 2013 a hitherto unknown pack of 79 hand painted Tarot cards was verified as being the work of the art nouveau enfant terrible.

Influences from the Tarot of Marseilles and the Rider-Waite-Smith decks are evident in the design, however the idiosyncratic verve and  boldly brilliant use of line could only have been executed by the skillful hand and wild imagination of Austin Osman Spare.

 

The Devil

Ace of Diamonds

The Sun

The Star

The Moon

4 of Clubs

The Lightning Struck Tower-Austin Osman Spare

5 of Hearts

The Wheel of Fortune-Austin Osman Spare

2 of Hearts-Austin Osman Spare

The Juggler-Austin Osman Spare

 

Cockney Rebel: Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare-Portrait of the Artist 1907

Phil Baker’s excellent 2011 biography of the gloriously eccentric artist/magician Austin Osman Spare should hopefully revive interest in an unjustly neglected London artist. Hailed as the new Aubrey Beardsley at the tender age of 17 he fell into obscurity and lived in Dickensian squalor  when the satyrs and general air of Yellow Book decadence that impregnated his drawings fell out of fashion after the First World War. Later years saw Spare inventing his own idiosyncratic form of magic involving the intensive use of Sigils; using automatic drawing techniques years before Breton posited Surrealism as pure psychic automatism, hanging out with The Great Beast himself Aleister Crowley; hawking his ‘Surrealist Racing Card Forecast’ cards (a divinatory artwork to help you pick winners at the races) in the back pages of the Exchange and Mart, experimenting with anamorphosis in his Experiments in Relativity series which in their use of film stars could be said to have anticipated Pop Art, and holding art exhibitions in dodgy South London pubs.

Because of his self-mythologizing tendencies and the willingness of certain friends to give credence to his amazingly tall tales he has gained a certain cache in occult circles since his death. The above Portrait of The Artist is in the private collection of Led Zeppelin guitarist and previously avowed Crowleyite Jimmy Page.

Like Blake, that other inspired Londoner, Spare created his own system rather than be enslaved by another man’s.

Austin Osman Spare-Joan Crawford 1933