Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00394)

> Leadbeater's aura drawings also, I think, influenced Kandinsky.

They certainly did. It is documented art history that the publication of
two influential illustrated Theosophical books ("Thoughtforms" by Besant
and Leadbeater and "Man Visible and Invisible" by Leadbeater) gave
Kandinsky the idea that shapes, colors and geometrics could be
singularly and abstractly expressive of emotional and mental content.
The seeds of a new pictorial language of non-representational form were
sown in these provacative works. Their impact was revolutionary. It can
be successfully argued that there would not have been the effort toward
developing a language of abstraction in Western Modernism without the
suggestions stimulated by these two extrordinary books.

Mark

The Spiritual Image in Modern Art (TPH)
The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (Abbeville)

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