AIR Update #1: Spirit Drawings
Greetings! This is Neil Daigle Orians writing on behalf of the Luscinia Historical Society. This is my first archivist update and I’m pretty excited it’s about spirit drawings.
Scan of Acquisition #1078-1084-2, an undated drawing originally acquired by LHS in the 70s. This drawing seems to be comprised of watercolors, ink, and graphite.
These drawings have some spectacular layers of color and texture, most likely watercolors. It’s difficult to pin down any kind of name or even date for these as they are unsigned, but what we do know is that these drawings include some of the newest acquisitions in the society’s collection. They are all dated to 1884, but without proper equipment and actual knowledge of how to date things, I can’t fully confirm one way or another. One of my colleagues at work is an art historian who has worked with chemists in the university – he may be a good starting point if the historical society will let me bring these in for dating.
The drawings in the LHS collection vary in size, with the newest acquisitions all sharing the same size of 9 x 12 inches. This is mostly speculation based on my previous research, but given the size and amount, I feel like these were created by a singular artist who had a prolific career in making these kinds of drawings. For reference, Georgiana Houghton (who I briefly mentioned in the video) created at least 155 drawings that are documented, and likely made even more.
As with many spiritualist artists, all of these in the collection were most likely made by upper class white women. If we also consider the context of the late Victorian era, women’s rights were becoming a hot topic, and thus some spiritualist artists used their work as a means to express themselves in an oppressive society. However, with that in mind, we should also consider what kind of art (drawing, poetry, etc.) was created by other marginalized people during this time that has been completely lost. Many of these works survive due to the wealth and privilege their creators had through their social status, even if they were often laughed at or criticized heavily for their “wild ideas”.
Scan of Acquisition #0324-1084-1, undated spirit drawing with automatic writing. It appears to primarily be composed of watercolors and ink.
There is some automatic writing throughout these works that can be difficult to read, but more problematic is that they likely will be impossible to decipher without knowing the context of when they were made. There are both numbers and words written out throughout these drawings. The phrase “please the nihilist” is repeated multiple times on one drawing that also contains numbers, but who knows what that could possibly mean.
Scan of Acquisition #0324-1084-2, featuring both organic and geometric motifs as well as automatic writing.
Scan of Acquisition #0324-1084-3. Unlike the other drawings in the new set of acquisitions, this one features different colors for the automatic writing.
Both organic and geometric motifs are present, but it seems like the artists involved preferred looser linear shapes and textures to strict geometric motifs like Hilma af Klimt and Emma Kunz. Regardless, these are incredibly interesting finds and I feel so lucky to have these as my first objects from the archive! For higher resolution scans, check out the Collection page. As for my personal project, I have experimented with using writing planchettes to draw before and while I’m open to more play in the future, I think for the time being I’m still taking a break from that series. I may appropriate some of the textures and motifs for future works however, they are incredibly fascinating.
That’s all I have for now, next time I have an interesting stack of what appear to be letters I will be leafing through to see if there’s anything substantial here.
Neil Daigle Orians • Archivist-in-Residence
