the focus of life austin osman spare pdf

The fourth and fifth books are affirmed as mature articulations of Spare's mysticism and magical theory, textually expressed in more emotive persuasive narrative forms through protagonists originating in name and function in Earth: Inferno. All symbolism is interpreted and given putative identification and its function as praxis fully discussed in relation to magical and creative method. The Book of Pleasure is interpreted as part allegory within the major drawings, and part automatism with symbolic adjuncts in others. The argument is that Earth: Inferno and A Book of Satyrs establish Spare's method of synthesizing influences such as Dante and Blake to evolve effective pictorial and textual tropes. This is presented as the praxis of the evolving cosmology, mysticism and world-view developing directly from Earth: Inferno. In addition thta this leads to the evolution of a method of symbolic automatism. The basic thesis is that the books constitute an interconnected developmental sequence that the artist pursues and refines certain major themes and exhaustively explores allegorical method. All allegorical nomenclature has been interpreted and putative identification given to all significant characters and their functions. This thesis constitutes a complete analysis of the following five books: Earth: Inferno (1950), A Book of Satyrs (19), The Book of Pleasure (1913), The Focus of Life (1921), and The Anathema of Zos (1927).Įmphasis is placed throughout upon the interpretation of the drawings within the context of the accompanying text.

The focus of life austin osman spare pdf