Have you read Gurdjieff? I only know of him through the Enneagram, but your emphasis on the integration of triads sounds like it descends naturally from him. Intentional? I like the clarity of the bird-person’s understanding.
Hi Tara! No, I haven't read Gurjieff. I knew his name from biographies of the writer Katherine Mansfield who I think went to live in his community and it was a wonderful new book about Varo, called 'Remedios Varo: Science Fictions' that alerted me to Varo's interest in his ideas. She seems to have got them from going to art workshops by someone called Christopher Freemantle and also from books popularising Gurdjieff's beliefs by Peter Ouspensky. The general view is that she found the ideas inspiring and that they influenced her work but that she wasn't entirely a devotee/believer. The books by Fred Hoyle on new scientific discoveries about the universe seem equally important to her.
I often find there is a whole framework of occult or specialist knowledge behind a writer or artist's work that is hugely influential. I spent a lot of (happy) years studying the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)'s occult reading and activity for my PhD but, in the end, it's the creative work that arises from it that matters. Do we need to know what Yeats believed about the eras of civilisation to enjoy the poems? I'm not sure we do.
Anyway, I felt it was important to signal where Varo's figure was coming from and there's a really good website on Gurdjieff here: https://ggurdjieff.com/
Wow! Thank you for that great website on Gurdjieff. That’s quite a resource, painstakingly compiled from contemporary accounts.
On H.D., have you met Rachel Connor yet at the Substack “Creativity Thesaurus”? She also wrote her dissertation on H.D. I think of that as the sign of an independent thinker. :-)
An exquisite, enlightening account of this painting. You have completely changed how I look at it. Or rather, you have made me LOOK at it.
Have you read Gurdjieff? I only know of him through the Enneagram, but your emphasis on the integration of triads sounds like it descends naturally from him. Intentional? I like the clarity of the bird-person’s understanding.
Hi Tara! No, I haven't read Gurjieff. I knew his name from biographies of the writer Katherine Mansfield who I think went to live in his community and it was a wonderful new book about Varo, called 'Remedios Varo: Science Fictions' that alerted me to Varo's interest in his ideas. She seems to have got them from going to art workshops by someone called Christopher Freemantle and also from books popularising Gurdjieff's beliefs by Peter Ouspensky. The general view is that she found the ideas inspiring and that they influenced her work but that she wasn't entirely a devotee/believer. The books by Fred Hoyle on new scientific discoveries about the universe seem equally important to her.
I often find there is a whole framework of occult or specialist knowledge behind a writer or artist's work that is hugely influential. I spent a lot of (happy) years studying the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)'s occult reading and activity for my PhD but, in the end, it's the creative work that arises from it that matters. Do we need to know what Yeats believed about the eras of civilisation to enjoy the poems? I'm not sure we do.
Anyway, I felt it was important to signal where Varo's figure was coming from and there's a really good website on Gurdjieff here: https://ggurdjieff.com/
I'm glad you liked the birdperson!
Wow! Thank you for that great website on Gurdjieff. That’s quite a resource, painstakingly compiled from contemporary accounts.
On H.D., have you met Rachel Connor yet at the Substack “Creativity Thesaurus”? She also wrote her dissertation on H.D. I think of that as the sign of an independent thinker. :-)