THEOSOPHICAL BOOKS AND COLOUR


The Theosophical Movement, absurd and politically suspect as it was, nevertheless inspired many artists and designers with its visual manifestations of spirituality. Among those who took the plates in Thought Forms and Man Visible and Invisible directly into their works included Kandinsky and Mondrian, but also the influential Czech painter Frank Kupka and Edvard Munch.


THOUGHT FORMS

plates from Besant and Leadbeater, Thought Forms, John Lane London 1905, "In the coloured drawings appended... [the] yellow forms accompanied the endeavour to communicate intellectual fortitude, or mental strength and courage."

The images from above from Thought Forms were also published in BIBBY's ANNUAL for 1917 in an article by Clara M.Codd entitled "The Power of Thought", from which they reached a large public.

 

MAN VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE


C.W.Leadbeater, Man Visible and Invisible, Theosophical Publishing House, London 1902 (one plate only - bottom right). An attempt to render the coloured auras surrounding the human body - here the astral body. "This indicates that the man has his desires thoroughly under the control of the mind..." Fine as far as it went but when the author started making unfavourable contrasts with men of "lesser races", he reveals a most unpleasant racism.

 

MORE THOUGHT FORMS

MORE MAN VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE