Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1120

Fragmentary notes by Heath for a letter, penciled on note paper

No date

White envelope has item 1120-1121.

. . . of the drawing, it seems to me that the spirit and effect of it is so extremely and dominantly religious or ecclesiastic as almost to clash with the announcement of a “new science” that stands out on the title page and with the whole character of the book, which professes not only to be scientific but to establish a new science in a field where there has been none before. I don’t mean that the Church and all things ecclesiastical are not of the Altar, but that the drawing seems to make it not merely a part of the Altar but practically the whole of it, with no recognition of science, explorations, sports and recreations, literature, poetry, music, dancing and all the realm of beauty and inspirational arts. When the Church takes all these within her ample fold, she will then represent all the free creative and ever transcending aspect of highly evolving life just as in the most primitive society all that is most precious and potential is gathered at its sacred shrine.

This drawing you have made breathes to me (inspires) an almost exclusively ecclesiastical spirit, and it seems to idealize, even apotheosize, not so much the universal aspiration towards Beauty as it does a single historic, the medieval, period. It would seem almost ideal to illustrate a Thomistic philosophy of return to the Universal Mother or for a book addressed particularly to theological and consciously religious minds. When (if ever) I (or we) re-write the present book from the subjective, conceptual and synthetic, instead of from the objective, perceptual and analytic point of view, and address it primarily to religious instincts, sentiments and ideals, this drawing, as a frontispiece, would well express its spirit and have strong initial appeal. As it is, I think we will have to work out something more starkly symbolic and broadly comprehensive, showing a more balanced mutuality and inverse or reciprocal inter-dependence of Citadel, Market and Altar.

     I love the clean, strong lines and masses in your “Pageant of the Ages,” with all its suggestiveness and almost abstract, yet meaningful beauty. I can almost see something, in that genre, (?) for the Citadel, Market and Altar — At the left, some stark symbols of power, protection and war with the Warder rising dominant over soldier and slave, sword and chain. At the right, horn of plenty, market-place, bazaar, sheaves, service accounts, artisans’ tools, manufactures, commerce. Less heavy lines and masses than the Citadel — a bit more detail here. At center and a little in the background, symbols of art, learning, science, philosophy, religion, with perhaps angels and muses at the sides, clouds above, the divine light of the Spirit of Beauty like a sunburst shining through and suffusing all with ideal aspiration. All this in a technique that becomes lighter and more ethereal as it rises and widens over all. I have only suggested some of

                                      /Breaks off/