Atu I - The Magus - Thoth Tarot - Aleister Crowley 1943

Lady Frieda Harris, sometime in the early twentieth century, made this painting for the Thoth Tarot deck with Aleister Crowley. Look at the colours: golden yellows and blues with purple undertones. The Magus stands in a field of radiating lines that meet behind him to form a dark, shadowy background. I can imagine her in the studio trying to create this vision, working away with thin layers of paint, shifting and refining until it felt right. What was she thinking as she laid down those lines? Maybe she was thinking of other symbolist painters? I see Gustav Moreau or even Hilma af Klint here. The image has that same slightly strange otherworldly vibe, and I can imagine her looking at similar kinds of source material as she worked. That balance and composition—it feels like such a careful, deliberate act, but maybe it all came to her in a flash. Artists are always in conversation with one another. One person's work sparks an idea in another. And so it goes on, through time.