Harold Arthur McNeill and his familiar Tharsis
448 words
Harold Arthur McNeill, born February 15th 1960, is an artist, poet, designer, and bookbinder living in Seattle. I first encountered his work in 2002 on the cover of the limited hardcover edition of Julius Evola’s Men Among the Ruins (Waterbury Center, Vt.: Dominion Press, 2002). I have used a number of his mordant and funny graphics at Counter-Currents. (See the “You may also like . . .” links at the bottom of this page. Click here to view his Facebook graphics gallery.)
Not only do I share Mr. McNeill’s philosophical, literary, and political tastes, but I also enjoy his dynamic compositions and dark humor. Heidegger said that every artwork evokes a world, and the same is true of a worldview. An important part of our metapolitical project at Counter-Currents/North American New Right is to find and encourage artists who can express a whole worldview in a single image.
Mr. McNeill makes his living from his art, so if you like his work, please contact him at [email protected] to arrange a purchase or a commission.
Paintings are acrylic on canvas. Sizes are approximate. The borders and titles are not parts of the paintings. They are merely for online display purposes. Unless otherwise noted, all paintings are for sale. For a wider selection of his paintings, visit his Facebook gallery here.
"Solar Knight" (9" x 12")
"Dark Knight of the Sol" (9" x 12")
"Republic" (9" x 12")
"Arkham House" (9" x 12")
"Arkham" (Sold)
"Cthulhu" (sold)
"Babylon" (9" x 14")
"Hypocrisy" (11" x 14")
"A Traitor in Our Midst" (sold)
"Blood Bond" (9" x 12")
"Bonding" (9" x 12")
"Blur" (9" x 12")
"Seduction" (9" x 12")
"Legacy of Cain" (9" x 12")
"Medusa's Coil" (9" x 12")
"Mermaid" (9" x 12")
"Solar Mermaid" (9" x 12")
"Sleep" (11" x 14")
"Dream" (9" x 12")
"Death" (9" x 12")
"Fruit of the Womb" (11" x 14")
"The Raven" (11" x 14")
"The Gateway" (9" x 12")
24 comments
Sorry,but the inspiration of this man is purely demonic.Forms,colors and compositions clearly speak that language.There is also an element of sexual perversion in it.
If our spiritual regeneration would be dependent on “artists” like this one,we would be doomed.I hope some artist with real spiritual inspiration can be found.
Yes, some of his art is sexual. But is it perverse, or just symbolic?
‘Sorry,but the inspiration of this man is purely demonic.Forms,colors and compositions clearly speak that language.There is also an element of sexual perversion in it.
If our spiritual regeneration would be dependent on “artists” like this one,we would be doomed.’
Perhaps there is another interpretation of McNeils works: he is not inspired by demonism, but is instead merely acting as an artistic mirror that is reflecting back the nature of the contemporary degenerate order.
If you have ever heard of the heavy metal band Slayer, this is what Tom Araya (Aryan?) who claims to be Catholic, states is his stance on their very dark discography. It is good to note however that they have recorded some pro-White tunes such as ‘Guilty of being White’
Before any palingenetic movement can be launched, doesn’t one first need to come to the realization that they are living in some type of Kali Yuga???
This guy is a real find. He is a first-rate designer and illustrator. The gallery of graphics is hilarious! Everyone needs to check that out. His Hitlerian and Lovecraftian work is fantastic.
The graphics definitely express your worldview, as you say. The paintings are much darker, less political, and more gothic and morbid. They would make great album art, t-shirts, mug designs, and posters. McNeill really needs to make them available that way. I would love prints of the Cthulhu paintings especially.
Looking at his Facebook page, it is clear why you are posting this at this time: McNeill guy is hard up for money and facing eviction. Posting this is an act of kindness and solidarity. Thank you for doing that.
I could not buy a painting, but I could help out by buying something less expensive or by giving a small donation, if that is possible.
You need to get him to do book covers for C-C.
I have encouraged Harold to make his work available as posters, t-shirt designs, etc. I will announce when such works become available.
His pictures of outstanding line and form and are finely executed, and highly sensual – but most of them are verging on, or are in fact – perverse. There is clearly a strong Franz Von Stuck influence there, which I appreciate as he was a truly great painter. Now I tend to like these darker elements of art, but it will always remain on the ‘dark fringe’ – as I call it – of our movement. I’ll echo Franklin Ryckaert’s remarks and say that, if this dark aesthetic of is all we can offer the world then i’m not surprised people shun our ideas. Also, the faux gothic text saying his name and title (on almost every image!) are rather irritating.
If you like this sort of scary and dark right wing art, or perhaps something a little more political then I highly recommend Herbert Smagon –
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=herbert+smagon&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=1099
http://www.art-smagon.com/dre_gro1.jpg
http://www.art-smagon.com/mau_g.jpg
http://www.art-smagon.com/art017.htm
http://www.art-smagon.com/art009.htm
This isn’t all we have to offer. We have those awful dead White males on our side: almost every great, good, and mediocre artist who walked this planet before the reign of the Jewish eye began about one hundred years ago.
Mr. McNeill, however, is unfortunate enough to be a living White male and a supporter of our metapolitical goals. Many of his paintings express this fact, and we should value his artwork doubly–once for its intrinsic beauty and second for its politics. If those of us in this “movement,” as you put it, do not support him, who will?
I do suggest that the more sexual paintings get a separate gallery.
Smagon is camp of the nuttiest sort, horror-kitsch, the David Olère of the Right, only worse. His depiction of nasty Russians untermenschen raping blonde Aryan underage girls is as pornographic as it gets, despite his intentions I suppose. But there is an element of obsession about him. Sometimes he creates pictures of a suggestive intensity, but all this is in pretty bad taste.
“His depiction of nasty Russians untermenschen raping blonde Aryan underage girls”
– the truth has to be told no matter what. And this is what Smagon does.
Of course some high ranking Russian officers or diplomats justifying that in many interviews for Discovery Channel does no good here. They tell us that they are defending the Red Army honor. Also the grand military parades in Moscow to “celebrate” the “Great European Defeat” also do no good.
Maybe it is pornographic and horror, but this is what Europeans did to another Europeans. If there is no remorse and no shame and only obfuscation we are doomed to repeat the same errors. But why we are not recognizing that many Russians had some pornographic and horror idea regarding Europe (rape of Europe in order to rejuvenate).
But the most important point is that our enemies can and WILL use these old strifes against us. A German repressing the truth, an American playing “ia ne znaiu” and a Russian bragging about his heroism in Moscow is not a good recipe for a white brotherhood (and yes Putin is bragging every and each year – Slava Russia – but nothing about their crimes and genocides).
I wish it hadn’t been the case…
This is a discussion of content vs. style. Well, certainly these paintings point to factual things… but that alone doesn’t make them great art. Let alone does the subject justify a lurid and pornographic treatment. On the contrary. Smagon tries so hard to impress with a cartoonish, overblown, almost hysterical style, that the whole thing borders on being titillating rather than shocking. If you don’t notice this, I am sorry for your lack of taste. It is also very naive to assume that this kind of stuff will produce “remorse and shame”.
Thanks for sharing this art Greg, I am impressed with McNeill’s art. Anyone who’s interested, as was noted by other commenters, McNeill’s facebook has a lot of other art, both paintings and graphics, that are more than worth checking out.
@Petronius
Style vs. content
I was talking about the political message. Not about style.
Something right in your face when no one tells you the truth anymore. I didn’t say that it is necessarily (I am in no position to comment here – I am an engineer) a great art. But what I can say is that I appreciate much more the truth than the style.
It is an artist using modern forms of expression in order to tell a certain “truth”. Beyond the apparent superficiality of the expression there are a serious message. A message conveyed as a virus. The form is known and “acceptable” in our world – the almost pornographic design. But the content is a different matter. The form is accepted so the message has been inoculated: “the Russian soldiers behaved like savages in Europe; and the Americans too”.
Naivety issue
In fact the left practiced this kind of art for a long time (think let’s say Renato Guttuso). For good or bad taste no one can deny it had political success and influenced millions of people. Which leads us to ask not how naive I am but how naive are the people, generally speaking. It’s a difficult issue. Because I am not sure if we should use the same techniques as “them”.
Anyway, against us these techniques worked like a charm. I don’t know if they will work against them, but, one might say at least it will break the uniformity of their message. No one has a monopoly on the victim statute nor on mindless killer statute. It is a negation of the current dogma unheard and unseen so explicitly.
Conformist “nonconformity” vs. the “nonconformist” conformity
I think that the modern art is generally utter nonsense or political “in your face” message. Smagon is in the second category. Smagon is a propagandist.
But, where are those great artists to do it better? After 66 years almost no one wants to deal with such difficult subject. Or are afraid to.
Titillating vs. Shocking
Not necessarily shocking but no way titillating. It was a horrible, brutal, stupid, dirty image. A symbol of what happens when the lower class of the victors get the upper class of the conquered. Sexuality and the “class struggle”. It borrows from the pornographic cartoons. But I wouldn’t consider those to be “titillating”. But also stupid and brutal. It’s a warning. Combine the “class struggle” and the “race struggle” in the sexual area and you get what’s happening today on a smaller scale (still). Take all these, describe them using “normal” expression means. Shocking they are not shocking anymore. Think of “Black Snake Moan”. Was it titillating? Was it shocking? It was dumb, dirty, horrible and utterly depressing for some. Which is the original intention of the movie. But the message was delivered.
As a parentheses: Hannelore Kohl (the wife of Helmuth Kohl) has been gang raped by Russian soldiers when she was 12. Her mother was gang raped too.
She said she “never was able to get over it, never forgot the stink of the soldiers, the garlic, vodka, sweat, even the sound of Russian language”. The girl in the picture is Hannelore Kohl at 12.
Expressed overblown and cartoonish? Yes. But can you call it “titillating”? I would not.
All in one; I reacted pretty strongly at those pictures and made me venture on a foreign terrain for me. Sorry for that. Still I can say that I liked Smagon.
Well, you maybe will not find the picture arousing, but believe me, many people would. Human sexuality has levels that reach far beyond. And I really think it is painted in a way to precisely evoke nasty sadomasochistic phantasies. At the same, it is not realistic enough to really repel. It remembers me of a series of pornographic postcards from WW I once saw on a flea market, that showed nasty cossacks raping gorgeous big breasted women. It was hard to tell whether it was supposed to be meant propagandistic or kinky, but I guess it was the latter. In porn it is precisely the nastiness that can serve as a turn-on, especially in contrast to the innocence and helplessness of the victim.
Some of famed holocaust artist David Olere works on a similar ambiguous level (unfortunately there are no good quality examples on the net):
http://www.laflamme.fr/images/olere.gif
I find some of Smagon’s stuff fascinating too, like this one:
http://www.archiviostorico.info/Rubriche/Autori/storici/HarmWulf/fotoarticoliWulf/smagon/smagon3.jpg
But again, the ambiguous sexual content is strong here.
Thank you for patience and explanations.
Yes indeed. But also comes from reality. It is about an English woman that married a Bantu warrior or something. She lost her family in England and everything and moved in a African village with her “husband”. But what’s stRiki-Eiking is not the shameless nakedness, nor the stupid arrogance of the husband, nor the beautiful young wife with that somewhat stunned look. It is is the huge empty modern building. Like those who build it are no longer in sight and the new “humanity” happily finds no use for that. With modernity, geometry lost it’s beauty. With that, it lost the war with the stupidity and the barbaric impulse.
I agree with Franklin Ryckaert. This is not National Socialism, it’s Nazism. In one of the most famous passages in Mein Kampf, Hitler said
And here we are.
Like Tom Metzger’s “lone wolf” strategy, McNeill’s art is guaranteed not to work. It will not only drive the public away, it will make potential sympathizers have second thoughts about whether they want to be associated with you.
It’s not the sexuality per se that bothers me. Nor is it the art, as art. I recognize that the pictures are vivid and well drawn. It’s the symbolism that bothers me. It’s the direction you’re pointing. This is a perfect representation of a mind that is so demoralized that no action can be taken, and nothing but defeat can be conceived. Fruit of the womb, indeed.
Looking at “A Traitor Among Us”, “Dream”, and “Seduction”, it dawned on me: this is a male scene, right? I had not thought about it until tonight, but I don’t recall hearing any female voices on the threads I have read. Nor do I recall any mention of wives and children at home. This is The Order of White Monks.
There is an old song that says
I don’t like
spiders and snakes
and that ain’t what it takes
to love me
The preceding paragraphs were written last night; now, Tuesday morning, I note that there is an article by a woman. So, it’s not entirely a male scene. But Juleigh Howard-Hobson is writing about her life as a mother. I wonder what she thinks about Harold Arthur McNeill.
Chip Farley: “Before any palingenetic movement can be launched, doesn’t one first need to come to the realization that they are living in some type of Kali Yuga???”
As if we don’t know that… No, we don’t need to be reminded yet again. We need to come to the realization that the hellish world we live in is not all there is. Something better is possible.
It isn’t necessary to live in a symbolic universe.
The picture of Sarah Hughes on this page expresses an alternative worldview:
http://bolstablog.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/dance/
In words: joie de vivre or strength through joy.
I know that this hellish world is not all there is, and yet I like these paintings anyway. They do not demoralize me. On the contrary, the catharsis evoked by them invigorates me and makes me all the more ready for action.
I don’t know how anyone could be left uninspired by the strength of the following paintings, let alone call them demoralizing:
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/247635_2038036839369_1497711641_2301746_6273963_n.jpg
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/251680_2065068555145_1497711641_2340025_5140727_n.jpg
http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/250666_2057624249042_1497711641_2327948_5131635_n.jpg
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/248690_2040030409207_1497711641_2303886_3880459_n.jpg
At any rate, the Cthulu paintings are bound to look strangely demonic to anyone not versed in the mythos.
This is puzzling. I looked at them, and I am not inspired. I don’t think I am the only one. For me it’s the reverse: I don’t see how anyone could be inspired by these pictures. Apparently some people are, since McNeill has found several defenders here, but I really think this kind of art has very limited appeal.
I had never heard of Cthulu (or Arkham) until a few days ago, and I don’t know what to make of it. Cthulu doesn’t even look European to me; he looks like a meso-American deity.
What action? What do these pictures inspire you to do?
I am with Lyle Burkhead here: neither inspired. I feel too there is something deadening, paralyzing to them. That ornamental, stiffening style…
Lyle Burkhead in blockquote:
Good observation. A young lady I used to work with was very much into the Lovecraftian Mythos, which she saw as being the foundation of a cold, hard realization that the Elder Gods have been denied, and will now work their will on us in unexpected ways.
There are scores of Lovecraft sites out there, and Cthulu, Elder God of Ry’ieh (I think that’s how she spelled it), is, to her, a Symbol of the potential we have to accept what Judeo-Christianity has denied us, the power to fulfill our Duties, writ large.
She was quite the Ludovician aristocrat, by the way, and had become so in spite of a horrific, hard-scrabble poverty background. She felt our Duty was to the Goal of overcoming the Systems that were not working, and replacing them with something that is “ruthlessly honest.” We were discussing Hitler, and I told her he was quite ruthless. She looked at me, and said,” The problem with Hitler is not that he was ruthless. It is that he was not ruthless enough.”
That’s a quote from Savitri Devi.
The limited appeal comes from, in part, a limited willingness to consider what he is drawing.The Symbols represent something most of us are unwilling to look deeply at, even though it is a part of who we are, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. I don’t see it so much as a matter of “appeal,” per se, as it is a traffic sign warning you of what you are, at best, dimly aware. How many of us have compromised our Identity so often, we don’t know who we are, and what we could become? Far too many, and that, in part, is why tranquilizers of all kinds have a very solid, growing market.
Being able to deal effectively with the anger that comes from a sense of ineffectiveness, of learned helplessness at the personal AND Institutional levels, is how we learn to turn demons into servant angels.
First, they have to accept the anger that comes from a profound sense of betrayal. That opens the door to personal authenticity, and THAT, in turn, opens the door to clarity of purpose, the fulfillment of the Work you are here to do. Their focus might shift from “jobs,” in and of themselves, to “jobs” that fulfill livelihood. This is one of the subtle themes of “Fight Club,” a movie that lends itself to repeated viewing.
It might even motivate you to send some money to counter-currents, regularly!
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
Fourmyle of Ceres:
Symbols (i.e. occult symbols, not mathematical or poetic symbols) are a basically untrustworthy way to perceive the world. Symbolic thinking juxtaposes things that in fact don’t go together, and makes it impossible to distinguish what’s real from what isn’t. I am willing to look deeply at anything, including torture and death, but I am not willing to look through a Symbolic lens. I avoid that kind of thinking. It’s poison. I have the same aversion to McNeill’s paintings that I have to the Book of Revelation. Over the years I have known a number of people who were into Symbolic thinking. They are all over the place. Some of them have been in and out of state hospitals. They are totally ineffectual in life, whether in terms of career, family, health, whatever. That is why I am puzzled by maelstrom’s claim that these paintings inspire him to action. I would like to know what kind of action, specifically.
No. “Dark Knight of the Sol”, for example, does not tell me anything about myself. It tells me something about the artist and his fans. It has nothing to do with my life.
That is not my situation. I don’t take tranquilizers or any pharmaceutical drugs.
@Lyle, “Taking action” means being ever more diligent in my scholastic endeavors, and in my business dealings, for money is power in this dark age. It means donating to various websites, journals, the A3P, and so on. It means educating others about the situation our race is in and letting them know that ways out exist.
I honestly don’t know what kind of action it is that you’re hoping for. There’s no warrior caste in today’s society.
@maelstrom — Ok, those are valid actions. Apparently we don’t see the same thing when we look at the pictures. You see them in a different context, and somehow they engage you emotionally in a positive way. I am still at a loss to understand *how* those images motivate you to action, but if they do, they do, and I just have to accept that. Facts are facts.
maelstrom in blockquotes:
Well, we’ll have to Do Something about that, won’t we?
What do you think the first step to reestablish a warrior caste would look like?
I would start with giving them a copy of Tim Ferriss’ “The Four Hour Body,” and a copy of the movie “Fight Club.” They would then get a copy of Harold Covington’s “A Distant Thunder,” and the rest of the Northwest novels when they were ready.
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
Lyle Burkhead in blockquote, inner cites in italics
Fourmyle of Ceres:
The limited appeal comes from, in part, a limited willingness to consider what he is drawing. The Symbols represent something most of us are unwilling to look deeply at, even though it is a part of who we are, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not.
The Mind is a Symbol processor. These Symbols represent archetypal forces, and the melding and transformation of archetypal forces, forces that remain active, even if we deny them. Indeed, when we deny them, they essentially compel us to “act out” in inappropriate manners, as if a lightning rod was too effective, and melted down, along with the transformer is was attached to.
Incidentally, this, in part, explains the people you know who could not transform the energy and messages correctly. There are those who can do this, and they are seen at the highest level of personal and political effectiveness. This, I assure you, Is Not By Accident.
Maelstrom seems to have addressed that to your satisfaction. Good!
even though it is a part of who we are
Well, not consciously, anyway. The artist and his fans are inspired, and might have something to do with your life, by way of example, at a future time. I see the larger message as being the acceptance of power, transforming it into tools of effectiveness by transforming it through the guiding intelligences of mature responsibility.
Perhaps casting such power in terms of the Norse mythos might be effective. After all, the power of Thor’s Hammer could only be wielded by one who was worth. Sword in the stone, anyone? Both Thor and Arthur took to arms to destroy their Enemies, who were trying to destroy, well, Civilization.
How many of us have compromised our Identity so often, we don’t know who we are, and what we could become? Far too many, and that, in part, is why tranquilizers of all kinds have a very solid, growing market.
I’m glad. Yet, many of those who do, do so because they can not accept the anger they feel at how badly thing seem to be. Drowning out the small, still, Voice, or blocking it with television, simply masks the Voice. The problems are still there, growing in power as they leech off of YOUR power, your effectiveness.
That takes us to Charlie Brown, who has become an active co-conspirator in his own learned helplessness. Think of the effect of some of McNeil’s paintings being like a weekend of est was to the author of “Fight Club,” or watching the movie of “Fight Club” was to many young men. It said it’s all right, and necessary, to get angry enough to use the anger to burn off the illusions we were enslaved under, and move forward – the POWER of anger – to resolve conflicts in a masculine manner; all, of course, in an “apple-pie, strictly legal, sort of way.” (HT: Jim Giles)
Action, this day. If McNeill’s paintings inspire this, so much the better.
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
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