Aleister Crowley was an art junkie. Most Thelemites know that he wrote and published poetry and prose of his own, painted and also put together multi-media presentations in the form of his Rites of Eleusis. But they might not be aware that he was a fan of the poet Algernon Swinburne to whose work his was favorably compared, corresponded with American novelist Theodore Dreiser, and possibly drew on the example of the multi-media Rose Croix Salons staged in Paris by Josephin Peladan. And wrote a poem celebrating Auguste Rodin:
Un homme. — Spectacle de l’Univers,
L’Oeuvre se dresse et affronte la Nature: perception et mélange,
Au seul centre silencieux d’une âme magistrale
De la Force égytienne, de la simplicité grecque
De la Subtilité celte. — Liberé par la souffrance
Le grande courage calme de l’Art Futur, raffiné
En sa nerveuse majesté, glisse, profond,
Sous la beauté de chaque rayon d’harmonie.
Titan! Les Siècles amoindris s’enfoncent,
S’enfoncent à l’horizon des contemplations. Debout, et lève
D’un ferme poing la coupe supreme, le Zodiaque!
Là écume son vin — essence de l’Art Eternal — la Verité!
Bois bois, à la toute puissante santé, au Temps rajeuni!
— Salut, Auguste Rodin! Vous êtes un homme!
in English:
Here is a man! For all the world to see
His work stands, shaming Nature. Clutched, combined
In the sole still centre of a master-mind,
The Egyptian force, the Greek simplicity,
The Celtic subtlety. Through suffering free,
The calm great courage of new art, refined
In nervous majesty, indwells behind
The beauty of each radiant harmony.
Titan! the little centuries drop back,
Back from the contemplation. Stand and span
With one great grip his cup, the Zodiac!
Distil from all time’s art his wine, the truth!
Drink, drink the mighty health — an age’s youth —
Salut, Auguste Rodin! Here is a man.
So likely, he would have been nonplussed at the news that a bronze statue by Rodin of a grieving mother cradling a dying girl that has served as a grave marker since it’s creation is going up for auction as reported in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/arts/design/rodin-grave-memorial-auction.html
