Re: Theos-World Portraits of the Masters: "They look like spooks"??
Sep 18, 2006 07:26 PM
by Cass Silva
My first thoughts on seeing these portraits years ago was that they resembled Jesus. I would like to see the faces without the beard and moustache.
Cass
danielhcaldwell <danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com> wrote: Portraits of the Masters:
"Class B" works of art??? "They look like spooks"??
Jake writes about the Schmiechen portraits of the Masters Morya and
Koot Hoomi as follows:
"Quite frankly I'm a little embarassed by those portaits of the
adepts, they're definitely 'class B' works of art, and I'm a little
amazed they were regarded highly (except for the spirit behind
them.) They look like spooks. M may have 'helped out' Schemlein(?)
the artist, but I doubt art was his forte, which was more likely
sword-play."
Now I invite interested readers to compare and contrast what Jake
wrote above with what Colonel Henry S. Olcott wrote about the
portraits.
It should be remembered as one reads Olcott's words that Colonel
Olcott testified that he actually met the two Adepts in their
physical bodies.
Writing about "the paintings by Schmiechen, of the magnificent
portraits in oils of the ... [Master Morya] and another Master [Koot
Hoomi]", Colonel Olcott observed:
"...the likenesses are so perfect and so striking as to seem endowed
with life.... They are an inspiration rather than an illustration of
thought-transference...." Old Diary Leaves, Volume 1, p. 372.
And turning to Old Diary Leaves, Volume 3, pp. 163-164, Colonel
Olcott wrote again about Schmiechen's portraits of the Masters:
"....[The portrait of Master Morya is] as pefect a portrait of my
Guru as he [Schmiechen] could have painted from life.... In the
picture he has got all - the face, complexion, size, shape and
expression of eyes....This is also true of the companion portrait
which Schmiechen painted of our other chief Guru [Koot Hoomi]...."
Of course, one should keep in mind that SOME photographs of these
portraits may not due justice to the original paintings (or to the
copies of the paintings also made by Schmiechen).
Again for comparison and contrast, I provide a webpage titled
"4 Paintings by Herman Schmiechen".
See:
http://blavatskyarchives.com/schiemiechenportraits.htm
On this web page one will find (side by side) reproductions of the
Masters' two portraits as well as reproductions of 2 portraits of
H.P. Blavatsky also painted by Schmiechen.
I think that most readers will be able to recognize that the woman
in the two portraits is in fact H.P. Blavatsky (as seen from various
photographs of her).
Does this observation concerning H.P.B.'s portraits tell us anything
about the Masters' portraits and their likenesses to the physical
men known by their initiatory names Morya and Koot Hoomi??
Daniel
http://hpb.cc
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