Eternal, unconfined, unextended, without cause and without effect, the Holy Lamp mysteriously burns. Without quantity or quality, unconditioned and sempiternal is the Light. (Book IV, Aleister Crowley)
In magick, the lamp is a symbolic representation of the inner light that guides the individual in his journey to find truth.
I made this illustration after a period of time when i was questioning my creativity and i could no longer find meaning in what i was putting my creative efforts towards. But it was actually an ending of a chapter. I had to turn inwards to figure out what to do next.
Portrait of Aleister Crowley, Acrylic on Canvas, 2021
Aleister Crowley(1875-1947) was a poet, playwright, mountaineer, chess player, and magician who traveled extensively and kept meticulous notes on his studies of different cultures and religious practices. This painting features Aleister Crowley contemplating the astral light.
Prints are available at RosalvaStudioArt.
I believe (the artist) Beatrice Offor's model for Aglaie, youngest of The Three Graces and wife of Hephaestus (God of Crafts) was quite obviously Moina Mathers, the sister of Nobel Prize-winning philosopher, Henri-Louis Bergson. She and Beatrice began their lifelong friendship as teenagers, when they went to art school together at the Slate. They also shared a couple of studios together later.
Moina went on to marry Samuel Liddell "MacGregor" Mathers and together they founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. While Mathers was the Magus (the magician who created rituals), Moina was the High Priestess, not only for her husband but for the entire Order. She was the main diviner, seer, and clairvoyant for the order, as well as a channeler (and creator) of visionary material for the rituals of evocation of the Inner Order. Among many other things she was the designer of the Golden Dawn Tarot deck.
Orryelle Defenestrate Bascule. Distillatio. London: Fulgur Limited, 2015. White cloth binding with dust jacket. 80 pages. Limited to 640 hand-numbered copies (#190/640). Fourth volume of the Tela Quadrivium.