Arty Farty Friday ~ Tobey, Graves, Callahan, Anderson - Northwest American Mystics ?

There were four artists who, in the late 1930s and 1940s, were known as The Northwest School, of modern art: Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson. They sought to create art that consciously responded to world events around them. All saw art as a form of spiritual quest, and were influenced by the Northwest’s mix of Native American and Asian traditions.

On Morris Graves - an archived post of mine:

Google Image pages linked showing selection of their artwork:

Mark Tobey
Morris Graves

Kenneth Callahan

Guy Anderson

Snip from:
Iridescent Light:The Emergence of Northwest Art by Delores Tarzan Ament & Mary Randlett.

For "the Big Four" art was a token of their intellectual journeys - a visual dialogue based on their understanding of the self and its relation to the cosmos. Eastern concepts of consciousness and creation intrigued them (they were all smitten with Zen, Hinduism, or even Baha'i).

As mid 20th century American mystics, the senior members of The Northwest School can be considered a visual arm of the Beat Generation: the Beats introduced Eastern disciplines and sacred texts to American literature, the Northwest artists invented a visual vocabulary to accompany this collective search for meaning in our society. They helped initiate a new and healthier understanding of nature. Morris Graves was as important in introducing the aesthetics of Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta to America as Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, Gerald Heard and Christopher Isherwood.

Ultimately, Tobey and Graves became mannerists, employees of their old ideas. Only Guy Anderson in his later years showed any vitality. He continued to develop his forceful, gestural paintings - big circles and undulating bands of scaled-up brush strokes. Compared to the size of Tobey's small paintings. Anderson's oeuvre is Leviathan.

Finally, there's Ken Callahan. His paintings were Christian Apocalyptic revelations. One will find armies of humans and animals crowded into the tempera. Callahan used a kind of figurative "white writing," too It's like a bottle of White-Out, filled with Existential yearnings.
The key to this technique, one they all shared, involved a dusky background - the grays and browns and greens of the Pacific Northwest. The flora and fauna appear in white atop the darker colors. This iridescence is the exact opposite of Seurat: everything starts with the dark and goes to the light. Also, everything was painted with an economy of means, a technique borrowed from the famous Chinese and Japanese scroll paintings found at the Seattle Art Museum.

Rather than post individually on the other three members I'm going to simply take a look at the four natal charts to discover whether there's any obvious astrological linkage. Charts set for 12 noon, so ascendants remain unknown, as do exact positions of natal Moons.

Mark Tobey: December 11, 1890, Centerville, WI.

Morris Graves: August 28, 1910, Fox Valley, OR.

Kenneth Callahan: October 30, 1905, Spokane, WA.

Guy Anderson: November 20, 1906, Edmonds, WA

The link I'm seeking will most likely be through Neptune. Neptune, in astrology, has mysticism as one of its keywords. Mark Tobey, eldest of this quartet, has linkage to Neptune via his natal Venus (planet of the arts). Venus and a Neptune/Pluto opposition draws Neptune into his artistry, but also interesting is a Yod (Finger of Fate) linking Mercury and Uranus by helpful sextile, with both planets in quincunx aspect (150 degrees) to Neptune/Pluto, forming the Yod with Neptune/Pluto at apex. Astrologers usually see the Yod formation as unhelpful, but I like to interpret it as the apex planet "outlet" being "fed" by the joint sextiled planets - in this case the mental capacity of Mercury in helpful aspect to the futurism of Uranus developing into the mysticism of Neptune (and in Tobey's case with some Pluto intensity included).

The other three artists all had Neptune involved in an oppostion aspect:
Graves - Neptune opposite Uranus
Callahan - Neptune opposite Mars
Anderson - Neptune conjunct Jupiter opposite Uranus. This Jupiter conjunction is interesting in view of that remark in the quote above: "He [Anderson] continued to develop his forceful, gestural paintings - big circles and undulating bands of scaled-up brush strokes. Compared to the size of Tobey's small paintings. Anderson's oeuvre is Leviathan."
Jupiter = excess, largess, big stuff!

Arty Farty Friday ~ Morris Graves - Idiosyncratic Visionary

Morris Graves - an artist of mystical bent whose name isn't well-known, except perhaps among art experts and local people. He has been described variously as idiosyncratic, visionary, mystical, introspective, intensely private, student of Zen Buddhism and Vedantic philosophies, spiritual and sylistic...and most eccentric of the "Northwest Mystics" - artists of the Northwest School in the USA..."going about life in an interesting, just out-of-societal-bounds manner".

He was born on 28 August 1910 in Fox Valley, Oregon, died in May 2001. He was a sickly and moody child, often ill with recurring pneumonia. His family moved to Seattle during his second year.

He dropped out of High School, but returned to his studies in Beaumont, Texas while staying with his aunt and uncle there. He eventually grew to a height of six-foot six. Some sea-going adventures as a cadet or a stow-away followed, accompanied by his brother or a friend, including voyages to Japan, where he found inspiration.

 Hat-tip to Seattle Art Museum.org

Morris Graves' name first became known in 1933, after winning the Seattle Art Museum's (SAM) Northwest Annual Exhibition. The winning painting, a symbolic self-portrait: "Moor Swan" (see right).

Further adventures followed, including working for the WPA, meeting (and falling out with), artist Mark Tobey, World War II, where despite registering as a conscientious objector he had to spend a brief time in the army.

Graves' paintings at this time featured birds. For him, consciousness assumed the form of a bird, or of a chalice. The birds he depicted were blind, wounded, maddened or immobilized, with large eyes and beaks. Graves's wounded birds proved to be popular in America, now embroiled in the war - as well as relevant to the artist's emotional state.

He lived alone in his self-built home, "The Rock", on an isolated promontory. Graves' paintings became more universally known and appreciated when first exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1942. MoMA bought 11 of his paintings for their permanent collection, even though Graves was, at that point, virtually unknown. 34 of his paintings were bought by art collectors. Morris Graves had "made it!"

He was, for a time, the "in thing" for East Coast art and intellectual society. Success and appreciation of his style continued until Pop-Art came along - people, as is their habit, flocked to see "something completely different".

Once financially secure Graves was able to allocate a good proportion of his funds to providing inspirational surroundings. After The Rock, he built, or caused to be built, two other homes in Western Washington and California, both reported to be extraordinarily beautiful creations. He also owned a country estate in Ireland. There's a description and photos of one of his homes at website of Iona Miller,but you need to scroll down a way for relevant piece.

For more, and interesting, detail on Morris Graves, there's a long essay, a very good read, at HistoryLink.org. The essay, from 2003 is by Deloris Tarzan Ament.

HistoryLink.org Essay 5205

PAINTINGS

Some titles can offer a clue to understanding the paintings, but sadly not every website bothers to include titles. I've found as many as possible. One or two were designated "untitled" by the artist.

Please click on images for bigger or clearer versions

 Time of Change

 Conflict Battling Crane Heads with Chinese Ceremonial Bronze

We are told by a biographer that the birds at each other’s necks, imagined as a ceremonial vessel, was representative of the artist’s inner conflict and inability to finish a voyage to Japan.

 Chalice

 Hibernation

 Memorial Day, Abandoned Western Mining Town

 Young Pine Forest in Bloom

 Bird Maddened by the Length of Winter

The above is considered to be one of Graves' anti-war works, painted in 1944 as World War II raged.
"Look at `Bird Maddened,' Daniel DuBois (who published a book of Graves' works) says, "and you see the almost camouflaged central image of a very fragile bird looking back over its shoulder while just barely hanging on by the points of its claws to a rock in an environment, which is extremely hostile. Without a doubt, this reflects Graves' sense of the fragility of life in war.

 Bird Maddened by the Sound of Machinery in the Air

 Bird of the Spirit

 Bird with Possessions

 Bird, Snake and Moon

 Snake and Moon

 Sanderlings

 untitled

I find the painting above scary, or at least unsettling, for some reason.

There's a slideshow of more paintings HERE. More paintings at Humboldt Arts too.



ASTROLOGY

Chart set for 12 noon, no time of birth is available.
Born on 28 August 1910 in Fox Valley, Oregon.

Seattle Art Museum has an interesting page on Graves, it includes several quotes from books mentioning the artist and how he was perceived, personally, by others. Example below:

He comes from the Pacific Northwest; an exceedingly tall thin figure, with large transfixed, rather alarmed eyes. . . He is shy and self aware to a degree, aloof yet (you suspect) ruthless in his self-determination. . . . In short he is very birdlike: receding, private, mobile, and migratory. . . He has the willful steely quality of a bird—its fierce capacity to survive.
—Frederick S. Wight, Director of the Art Galleries, University of California, on meeting Morris Graves, 1956

An Earthy harmonious trine between Sun in Virgo and Saturn in Taurus = a meticulous, demanding and determined character with a reasonably good business sense.

Neptune (mysticism, creativity) opposite Uranus (the unexpected, innovation, eccentricities) is a generational opposition affecting many. Skyscript adds:

"...most noticeable in charts where it contacts the angles or Sun or Moon. Uranus fosters change and innovative breakthroughs. Neptune relates to mass consciousness. When these planets are in contact with each other, collective ideals will be shaken and disturbed in order to allow new modes of thought and collective expression to emerge."

Because we have no time of birth it's not possible to accurately place the opposition in Graves' chart.
Uranus also trines Mars and Saturn, so those aspects would tend to draw the opposition into a more personal significance. Each end of the opposition also forms square aspects to Jupiter, creating a T-square.

Venus (the arts) in Leo is in helpful sextile to Jupiter (religion, beliefs, travel) - that's a good fit. He was an enthusiastic traveller, always gathering inspiration for his art.

Moon conjunct Pluto? Maybe. We don't know correct Moon position without time of birth, but it was likely to have been in communicative Gemini. He was a solitary type, not given to social butterfly antics, but he satisfied urges to communicate using a paintbrush.

Any more?

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