The Book of Automatic Drawing

by Austin Osman Spare

A Book of Automatic Drawing is a large, folio-sized book of sketches by the renowned English artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare (1886 - 1956). The original work was executed by the artist in April and May of 1925 during a particularly turbulent period of his life in which he abandoned more commercial artistic styles and instead immersed himself in the creation of several series of his darkly-visionary "automatic drawings." Spare finished the work in 1925, but his attempts to publish it himself failed, and it remained unpublished until it was printed by the Catalpa Press (London) in 1973. The book is a magnificently-crafted reproduction of Spare's original manuscript sketchbook and comprises a decorative title, contents, and end pages, plus twelve full-page plates and an Introduction by Ian Law. The sheets of this Catalpa Press edition were beautifully produced by an art-printer in two issues: a "trade edition" printed on white laid paper and an "edition deluxe" on hand-made paper. Each copy of the edition deluxe was to be "posthumously signed" by Spare by way of tipped in signed cheque that had been recovered from his home after his death.

Genres: Art, Occult

56 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 2005

About the author

Austin Osman Spare was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self. His artistic work is characterized by skilled draughtsmanship exhibiting a complete mastery of the use of the line[1], and often employs monstrous or fantastic magical and sexual imagery.

Some of Spare's techniques, particularly the use of sigils and the creation of an "alphabet of desire" were adopted, adapted and popularized by Peter J. Carroll in the work Liber Null & Psychonaut . Carroll and other writers such as Ray Sherwin are seen as key figures in the emergence of some of Spare's ideas and techniques as a part of a magical movement loosely referred to as Chaos magic.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cool artwork and interesting concept, unfortunately it was a bit of a difficult read (though short) and not as useful as a tutorial (perhaps look to Crowley for more assistance in that regard).

[Regulus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hesitant to rate this cause what if I ruin the 4.20 average rating?😨
(Also cause this review is pointless...I'll probably never rate anything made by Spare with less than 5 stars)