The Avant-Garde, Occultism, and Fascism

Woody Guthrie

Over the years, LoS has made some posts about swastika-shaped buildings people found on Google Earth and then claimed are homages to Nazism.  Finding that preposterous, those posts were rather sarcastic.  But this year we've looked at some monuments seen from the air that were indeed intentionally created to honor not just Nazism, but Lenin and Mussolini as well.

Snark, begone!

This present post began when we looked at fascism in the 20's and 30's and examined the parallels between the backgrounds of fascist leaders.  The political parties involved invariably had uniformed paramilitary arms (almost always identified by the color of their shirts).  The dictators, almost to a man, had a background in the arts and an interest in occultism and/or mysticism.  Leaders of various fascist movements around the globe, prior to their political lives, were poets or novelists, playwrights, or, in the case of Hitler, a painter.   Some of them had been pretty successful at it.  There are a handful of journalists in the mix.

Naturally, there are a lot of fascist flags and emblems in this post in order to compare and contrast their aesthetics.  If you're triggered by that sort of thing, you might as well stop here.  Just to be clear, fascism is not something we find amusing or with which we sympathize.  I think I can speak for The Gid when I say we are not only completely unsympathetic to fascism, but we are decidedly anti-fascist.  Not black-bloc Antifa types hurling bricks at ATM's, but just good-old American anti-fascists, like our grandparents.  Like Woody Guthrie.  You know, like it was before Herr Trump and his GOP and Fox News enablers made "anti-fascist" sound like a sinister thing.

So, with that said, we are unapologetically intrigued at how many of those fascist leaders were artsy types involved with mysticism and the occult.  And colored shirts.

The earliest fascist party we'll talk about is the NSDAP, aka the Nazis.  The movement's influences from Viennese occult lodges are well-documented.  See The Occult Roots of Nazism for details.  The book is a legitimate work of scholarship, not whacky conspiracy nonsense.  It's a long book, too long to summarize, but it shows how much of the more esoteric ideology and imagery Hitler used in his Nazi aesthetics and ideology originated with his involvement in these groups, especially the Thule Society (1918).  

Thule was a mythical place believed by the ancient Greeks to be the northernmost region of the world.  The Thule Society, and the Nazis, believed it to be the homeland of the Aryan race.  This is why both used the swastika as an emblem.

Seal of the Theosophical Society

The Thule Society itself was influenced by The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 and based primarily on writings of Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky (Theosophy = Theology + Philosophy).  Theosophy quickly became quite influential in European occultism.  The Thule Society embraced a more racialized version of Theosophy called Ariosophy (developed by Lanz von Liebenfels). 

"Ario" refers to the Aryans, an ancient Indo-Iranian people.  They, like many ancient Eurasian peoples, used the swastika as an important religious symbol.  Until Hitler tarnished it, the swastika was a widely-known symbol for good luck in the West, and is today still widely-used in India and East Asia by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.  The Theosophy "logo" contains a Hindu-style swastika, facing right and set a at a 90° angle.

"Swastika" is a Sanskrit word (roughly meaning "conducive to well-being") and can be found decorating Hindu and Greek temples, Hopi designs, and has even been found in an ancient synagogue in Capernaum.  Some years ago Microsoft removed the swastika from it's "special characters" Unicode after customer complaints.  It had been included because Japanese maps use the symbol to indicate the location of shrines and temples, much as on Western maps use a cross to indicate a church, a Star of David a synagogue, and a crescent, a mosque.

SA Flag

The Nazi flag is pretty well-known, so I won't include it here.  What I will show is the flag of the SA.  Note the lightning-bolt motif.  The SA (Sturmabteilung, 1921) was the paramilitary wing of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,, 1920).  Not to be confused with the SS, the SA were uniformed, paramilitary members of the political party and commonly referred to as the "Brownshirts."  They served as bodyguards and muscle for the fledgling Nazi party.

Hitler had served with some distinction as a corporal in WW1, after which he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as an artist.  Germany's defeat left him deeply embittered, and his artistic failures only deepened that bitterness.  He details how he came to blame both of these experiences on Jews in Mein Kampf.  The theatrics and spectacle of Nazism may be the expression of his frustrated artistic ambitions.  He was a very hands-on dictator, designing everything from the cutlery to the furniture he used in the Chancellery.  Even as the Russians marched on Berlin in his final days, he pored over Albert Speers' plans and models for the Berlin of the "Thousand-Year Reich."

It was during his lean years as a starving artist that Hitler became involved in the occult demimonde in Vienna and was exposed to Ariosophy.  It was here he picked up on the swastika, Aryan lore, and even the idea of a "master race."  

To what degree he believed in the mystical ideas is unclear, and one must be careful not to overstate the degree to which he adopted the beliefs of these occult groups into his worldview, but he knew political theater, and effectively used it to manipulate an entire nation.

Flag of the Regency of Carnaro

Gabriele D'Annunzio had an important if indirect influence on Hitler's theatrics.  He was both rival and influence on Mussolini.  The black shirts of his paramilitary group, the famous balcony speeches....he was even at times called Il Duce.  When Hitler became the dictator of Germany he took the title Der Führer or "leader," a practice he picked up from Mussolini.

D'Annunzio adhered to a mystical philosophy and had became involved in an esoteric form of Italian Freemasonry.  His political ambitions were briefly successful in creating the Italian Regency of Carnaro (1919-1920) where he was sometimes called "Comandante." Basically a city-state, its charter was an odd mix of anarchist, proto-fascist and democratic republican ideas.

He started as a poet, playwright, orator, journalist, (and aristocrat).  He ended up founding his city-state and is credited with creating Italian fascism.  Like Hitler, he served in WW1, but as a lieutenant. 

Benito Mussolini was influenced by portions of the constitution, and by D'Annunzio's style of leadership as a whole. D'Annunzio has been described as the John the Baptist of Italian Fascism, as virtually the entire ritual of Fascism was invented by D'Annunzio during his occupation of Fiume and his leadership of the Italian Regency of Carnaro.  These included the balcony address, the Roman salute, the cries of "Eia, eia, eia! Alala!" taken from the Achilles' cry in the Iliad, the dramatic and rhetorical dialogue with the crowd, and the use of religious symbols in new secular settings.  It also included his method of government in Fiume: the economics of the corporate state; stage tricks; large emotive nationalistic public rituals; and blackshirted followers, the Arditi, with their disciplined, bestial responses and strongarm repression of dissent.

The Roman salute, BTW, is never depicted or even described in Roman art and literature, and is now known as the Fascist salute. Although D'Annunzio created it, it's now most commonly associated with the Nazis.  And D'Annunzio's influences on Mussolini evoke many of Hitler's practices.  No Eia, eia, eia! Alala!" but plenty of Seig Heils!

Flag used by Italian Fascists

MSVN Flag

As we said above, Benito Mussolini also had his Blackshirts, the MVSN (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale), the paramilitary wing of the National Fascist Party (1921-1943).  Their flag features a skull reminiscent of the Nazi Totenkopf, sans crossbones.

As dictator, Mussolini took the title Il Duce, but he'd actually first been called that after being made editor of the Socialist newspaper Avanti!.  He too had served as in WW1.  Like Hitler, he both rose to the rank of corporal and was wounded in action.

The Great War clearly had an immense impact upon the three future dictators.  Not having read their own words on the subject, I wouldn't want to begin to armchair-psychoanalyze them, but I'm willing to bet there's no dearth of material on the subject.

Filippo Tommaso Marinettii was a poet, art theorist, editor, and fascist.  He co-wrote the Fascist Manifesto (1919).

Marinetti was also the principal architect of Italian Futurism.  Futurism had an enormous impact on Modernist art.  It was roughly contemporaneous with Dada, and each movement influenced the other. Many Dadaists went on to become active participants in the Surrealist movement.  From Surrealism grew Lettrism and Situationism, the latter of which proved very potent; in May, 1968, students inspired by its ideas spearheaded a series of strikes and street protests that almost toppled the French government.

The Dada-Surrealism-Lettrism-Situationism lineage was decidedly Marxist.  Futurism, on the other hand, in Italy, was fascist in nature.

Among other Modernist movements, Italian Futurism influenced the development of concrete poetry and music.  Indeed, the essay The Art of Noises gave birth to an entirely new kind of music, musique concrète, that integrated everyday sounds into compositions:  train whistles, honking horns, engines, etc.  Music critic and cultural theorist Greil Marcus traces the development of late-20th century Punk and Industrial music back to Futurism and Dadaism.  

The term "Industrial" hearkens back to the ideas of Italian Futurism.  The very name "Futurism" derives from the movement's concern with technology, invention, and its effect on art.  Electronic music and sampling led to Industrial, House, Hip-hop, and a whole slew of avant-garde experimentation.

(See Ubuweb for examples of Lettrist, Situationist, Dadaist, and Futurist works, among other Avant-Garde  movements.)

Throbbing Gristle Logo

Noises produced by everyday objects would wind up in the compositions of Edgar Varèse, sometimes called the "Father of Electronic Music," and of course the early Industrial genre, especially Throbbing Gristle (TG), Z'ev, Boyd Rice, and Cabaret Voltaire (named after the cabaret in Zurich which was one of the birthplaces of Dada, ca. 1916).

Rice has called himself an "aesthetic fascist," is an occultist and was once a highly-visible member of The Church of Satan.  TG, friends of Rice, also flirted with fascist imagery and used Oswald Mosley's lightning bolt as a symbol for the band.  

David Bowie also used the lightning bolt symbol in his stage sets.  In the coked-up years around 1976, Bowie famously said in an interview that "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars."  His mother was in Mosley's BUF - see below - and he did flirt with fascism, although I don't think he was a fascist.  

I think Bowie was making the same connection between the adulation of rock stars at concerts and fascist rallies Pink Floyd made in The Wall.  In the film, rock star Pink has a mental breakdown, and, in a drugged state, imagines himself as a fascist dictator and holds a series of rallies.  The black and red crossed banners of Pink's political party, the black uniforms of Pink and his followers, the violence they stir up, are clearly modeled on real-life English fascist Oswald Mosley and the Nazis. 

 

Marilyn Manson's best songs all seem to be covers.  And he covered the imagery of Rice, Pink Floyd, and Mosley on his Antichrist Superstar tour when he used a similar lightning bolt-in-a-circle logo, black military-stye uniforms, big podiums, and banners in his stage sets.  Manson was also a friend, even a protege, of Rice, and joined the Church of Satan. 

Manson seems to have put on the show Rice wishes he could have staged, but couldn't, because Rice's music is simply far too extreme to make the kind of money Manson has made during his career.  Oh, and don't forget channeling Alice Cooper.  In Cooper's day it was "shock rock," or what the "Decadent" French poets, including Baudelaire and Rimbaud, called "Épater la bourgeoisie," that is to say, shock the middle classes.  

 

But most of it was show.  For a real transgressive rocker, check out G.G. Allin!  That dude ate laxatives before his shows so he could shit on stage, smear it over his usually naked body, fling it about, and punch up audience members.  Not really on point, but he transgressed the norms in ways that make Cooper and Manson look like Girl Scouts.  Need it be said that at times Allin adopted fascist elements in his look?

TG co-founder Genesis P-Orridge went on to found Thee Temple of Psychick Youth, an "anti-cult" with strong influences from The Process Church of the Final Judgement, whose symbol in some ways resembles a swastika.  Both groups toyed with fascist imagery and embraced convoluted occult doctrines.  The Process Church also inspired the name of Adam Parfrey's Process Media.  Parfrey was a pal of Boyd Rice and published Anton LaVey and works about the Process Church.

Flag of the BUF

So, Oswald Mosley, finally.  Like D'Annunzio, Mosley served as a lieutenant in WW1 and was an aristocrat (Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet).  After serving as an MP for different political parties, he founded the British Union of Fascists (1932).  The BUF had a paramilitary wing called the "Biff Boys".  They wore all black uniforms and their flag was a lightning bolt with a similar color scheme to the Nazis.  Like the NSDAP and the Italian Fascists, his party's uniformed paramilitary put a little fisticuffs into his politics.

A brief aside.  Biff Boys....Can't help but think of the Proud Boys.  The Proud Boys are an alt-right and some say Neo-Fascist group who serve much the same purpose as the Biff Boys or any other x-shirted group.  They like brawling with leftists.

Proud Boys Flag

They favor black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts, a brand previously associated with skinheads (much to Fred Perry's chagrin).  The Proud Boys aren't the paramilitary arm of a specific party, but they tend to wear MAGA hats and thus, identify as pro-Trump.  They engage in street brawls with Antifa, BLM and other progressive or leftist groups.  They espouse pretty much what you'd expect of any reactionary group:  Western chauvinism, anti-Feminism, anti-Communism, homophobia, racism, antisemitism, and an unabashed belief that a good punch-up is an effective way to keep the left in line.

The Proud Boys was founded by English-born Canadian Gavin McInness.  He was a journalist and a co-founder of Vice magazine.  I wonder if these journalists, frustrated by the lack of direct results with their words, turn to fascism and street-fighting as a way to more effectively propagate their views.  Instead of op-eds, why not pop heads?

Across the pond, The Silver Legion of America (1933), was founded by William Dudley Pelley as a direct result of Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany, where Hitler, presumably, was busy designing spoons. The "Legionaries" were informally called the Silver Shirts.  Like Mussolini, Pelley had been a journalist, but he was also an award-winning screenwriter, and had become a spiritualist.  He never became a dictator, just a fascist sympathizer, but like Hitler and Mussolini, he took a title anyway.  Followers called him "The Chief."  Another writer/journalist mystic with a thing for shirts.  He first became famous in 1933 when he wrote about an out-of-body experience during which he claimed to have visited other planes of existence and which left him able to levitate, see through walls, and leave his body at will.  His religious system has been described as "a mixture of theosophy, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and pyramidism."  

His politics were typical fascist fare: anti-Communism, antisemitism, patriotism, corporatism, and something which persists today among Neo-Fascist Christian Identity movements, British Israelism.  During WW2 he opposed FDR and was eventually charged with sedition and later, securities fraud. 

After being released from prison he developed a religious philosophy involving UFO's and aliens. Which is a whole other canna worms.  There's a whole slew of literature about Nazis, UFO's, the Thule Society, and the Vril Society.  This latter is a weird one.  A genuine religious ideology based on a novel.  You've heard of Marmite for sure.  What about Bovril?  The founder of that goop believed it would boost your "Vril energy."  Alien-given super powers!  

Some posit that there was a Vril Society that served as an inner circle of the Thule Society before WW2, and others claim a Neo-Nazi group in Vienna continued the work, which is where it is alleged the UFO-links were elaborated.  Thing is, the Vril concept comes from a novel.  But many occultists, including Blavatsky, believed it was based on actual occult knowledge.

Flag of the Falange Militia

 

Francisco Franco took the title "El Caudillo," and the fascist paramilitary of the FE de las JONS (1934) was known as the "Falange Militia," unofficially called the "Blueshirts."  Caudillo roughly translates to "Warlord" or "Strongman," but could just as easily be translated as "Chief" or "Head Man," like our next (non-fascist) artistic mystic who went into fringe politics.  

Alone among our fascists, Franco wasn't into any mystic stuff, not a poet, journalist or painter.  He did write a novel, Raza, at some point, but he wasn't really an artist.  He was a career military man, and his fascist ideology was your typical antisemitic, nationalist, anti-Masonic stuff.  Franco never really made use of the grand theatrics, eye-catching symbols, or rallies, etc.  But he was also the only fascist dictator who lasted.  After the Civil War that put him in power, there was pretty much peace.  He was authoritarian and brutally repressive, but Spain experienced economic prosperity, and, after, his death in 1975, his successor King Carlos was able to help transition Spain back into democracy.  And it remains democratic.  

Every few years my wife gets her ballots in the mail, and it seems half of them are for Falangist candidates.  I once bought a clay kid's figurine of a Blueshirt giving the fascist salute from what I suspect was a German Neo-Fascist. He gave me 50% off because it was "for the boy" and "it is cute, no?"

 

I no longer have it because I broke the fucker.  A kid's toy, basically a fascist kewpie doll.  One of my weirder lapses of ethics

Flag of the Social Credit Party

John Hargrave was involved in Scouting and first created the Kibbo Kift Kindred (unfortunately abbreviated as KKK, 1920), which morphed into the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit (circa 1932), finally becoming  the Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1935).  During his KKK days he was known as the "Head Man" (Caudillo?).  His party's Green Shirts marched, provided security, and brawled with Mosley's Blackshirts and Communist Red Shirts.  Although not a fascist, Hargrave was a charismatic and authoritarian leader, known for his theatrics, ritual, and the use of a uniformed paramilitary.

These paramilitary groups almost remind me of street gangs, and like the Crips (blue) and Bloods (red), signaled their allegiance by the color, not of their bandanas, but their shirts. Hargave was also an occultist:

John Hargrave was many things; a pagan cult leader, a brick hurling radical, a pioneer of universal income, a thriller novelist, a psychic healer, an inventor of note, a control freak, and always, to the very end, a utopian dreamer.

Boyd Rice Wolfsangel

Boyd Rice, mentioned before, is best known as as avant-garde musician of the early Industrial scene, a more pop-based kind of musique concrète that grew out of a melange of the "classical" tradition and Italian Futurism.  Rice is also an artist, essayist, novelist, and occultist.  He has definitely "flirted with fascism," integrating the ouroboros, as in the Theosophy "logo," and the Wolfsangel, an old German rune, into his personal iconography.

Similar runes figure on several German coats of arms.  After its use by the Nazis, including several SS and Wehrmacht units, it has been adopted by several Neo-Nazi groups, including the Aryan Nations.  Rice says it represents the occult principle of the "reconciliation of opposites," but given its association with Neo-Nazis, it's a dubious choice at best.  Note also that the ouroboros figures on D'Annunzio's flag of the Regency of Carnaro.  Rice cites D'Annunzio as a personal hero; perhaps the archetypal "aesthetic fascist...." 

 

Church of Satan Emblem

 

During later years the Church of Satan adopted an inverted pentagram traversed by a lightning bolt, recalling Mosley and its (ironic?) use by Bowie, Manson, and TG.  The Satanic Bible uses quasi-fascist rhetoric cribbed from the Social Darwinist and antisemitic Might is Right.

The Church of Satan, though not explicitly fascist, embraces strength, force, vengeance, and rule by the elite.  Its iconography and doctrines have always leaned right, even though the Church itself denies any political ideology.  Members such as Marilyn Manson and Rice have embraced fascist aesthetics, and though they themselves might not actually be fascists, toying with its imagery, if anything, neatly demonstrates the foundation of this post.  Namely, the intersection of art, fascism, and the occult.

Flag of the the Tatenokai

Emblem of the MSVN

 

 

 

Another author that dabbled in fascistic, ultra-nationalist politics was Japanese author Yukio Mishima, who created a paramilitary group called the Tatenokai (楯の会, 楯の會) or "Shield Society."  They were ardently anti-Communist, nationalist and sought to restore the Emperor to power.  They even attempted a coup in 1970.

Though there's no indication Mishima was directly inspired by D'Annunzio or Mussolini, the speech he gave to try and rouse military cadets to rise up against the government was given from a balcony, a staple of Italian fascist stagecraft.  The flag of the Tatenokai brings to mind the emblem of the MSVN, but I think this is more coincidence than anything else.

The flag includes the symbol of the Japanese emperor, the sun, and a samurai helmet.  It resembles the MSVN flag in form.  Both flags evoke power through armed might, and both pay homage to their nations' imperial pasts; one with the fasces of the Roman emperor, the other with the sun of the Japanese emperor.  Fascist rhetoric evokes the mystical past because the present often sucks, the future's uncertain, and past is always easy to portray as "glorious." Atavism is a staple of right-wing ideology (Make America Great Again).

By the by, Mishima was apparently wont to evoke the ouroboros towards the end of his life.  No other indication, as far as I know, that he was into the occult...

 

Would-be fascist occultists are still walking around.  Have you heard of one Augustus Sol Invictus, born Austin Mitchell Gillespie?  Better call Sol.

"Invictus" is a Florida lawyer who attempted to win office as a Libertarian, yet who has been denounced as a Neo-Nazi.

During his campaign for the US senate he was accused of dismembering a goat and drinking its blood.  Invictus admitted he made this sacrifice as a way of thanking the gods after a pilgrimage he made to the Mojave desert.  He denies being a fascist, and apparently has renounced his past enthusiasm for eugenics, but who knows?  He was a Thelemite, but was expelled from the OTO, ostensibly for the goat sacrifice, but also just as likely for his popularity among white supremacists.

That said, I should point out a certain hypocrisy regarding the sacrificed goat. 

Near Tampa is the community of Tarpon Springs, a community founded by Greek immigrants.  The Greek Orthodox Church remains an important institution there today.  Normally, it it forbidden to keep and slaughter animals in a residential area or without a bevy of permits.  But in keeping with Greek tradition, Tarpon Springs residents are permitted keep and slaughter a sheep at their homes to celebrate Easter.  One hopes it's fast and not cruel, but whatever the case, a whole community sacrifices animals at Easter and it's a-ok.  A Thelemite does it and it's bonkers.  

Of course, the Greeks don't drink the blood, I think.  Not literally, anyway.  If you believe in transubstantiation, Catholics literally drink the blood of Christ and eat his flesh.  Every week.  Sol Invictus may be a weirdo, but hell, millions of other theophagists are just fine.

If I were much more clever, I would try to figure out why the occult, art, and fascism often hold the same allure.  But I won't.  I think it's clear artists want to say something, to bring something from nothing.  To make manifest their will.  Isn't politics something like that as well?

I believe Crowley was the one who defined "magick" as making one's will manifest. "Do what thou wilt."  Makes me think of Triumph of the Will (1935).

 

Without getting overly heady, in many ways art, occultism, and magick boil down to effecting one's will.  It's not done by voting or by committee, but by thinking it and willing it into existence.  Fascist states were essentially big canvases upon which a leader imposed his vision, without scruple.

I don't know how to end this thing, so I suppose I will simply end it here and let you make of all this, erm, what thou wilt....

Forest for the Trees, Stones for the Mountain

Not sure how, but my recent Ukraine-related searches somehow led me to a photo I hadn't seen in a while.  I think it was a result of Czar Vladimir's claim that Ukraine is led by Nazis.  All this despite the fact that President Zelensky is Jewish.  But hey ho!  Jews for Hitler, right?  

It worked for Richard Green.  (See Apocalypse Culture II, Adam Parfrey, ed., P. 397)

I'd mentioned the photo in question back in 2007 as part of a post about the kerfuffle surrounding a swastika-shaped barracks at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego.  In that post I mentioned a swastika which, like the Coronado building, was visible only from the air.  But this swastika was made of trees, and became visible when the seasons turned the strategically-placed larches yellow against the surrounding evergreen pines.  The origin of this "treestika" is uncertain, but it's fate is more clear.  In 1995 a few leiderhosen-clad dudes with chainsaws cut down 43 of the 100 offending trees; yet in 2000, traces were still visible, so a further 25 trees were felled.  By all accounts it's now been pretty much obscured.  Auf Wiedersehen, Nazi trees.  Situated near the German village of Zernikow, not so far from Berlin, this is what the treestika looked like when the season was right (i.e. Spring and Autumn):

 

 

According to Wikipedia:

Reports say the larches were planted in 1938. It is unclear how the trees came to be planted and arranged in such a fashion. It seems they were planted in commemoration of Adolf Hitler's birthday, either by local Hitler Youth members or by a warden.

At the time of the Coronado post, I'd heard of another "forest swastika" near the town of Asterode in the state of Hesse, which also included the date "1933".  This second homage was apparently discovered by American soldiers in the 70's, but its origins are even more obscure than the Zernikow version.  Until recently I hadn't seen a photo, but now we have, and here it is (from Atlas Obscura): 

 

 

 

Apparently such "horticultural hate" (quote from ABC News) was a pretty popular hobby for Nazi sympathizers, because there is yet another tree swastika in Kyrgyzstan, near the village of Eki Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, on the edge of the Tian Shan Mountains.  This was first reported by the New York Times in 2006.  According to the article it was at least 60-years old at the time.  Roughly 600-feet across, legend has it that German POW's duped their Soviet captors to plant the symbol as an act of defiance.  But the legend is untrue, and the article recounts several conflicting versions about its origins. But no German POW's ever worked there. One account says it was planted in the 30's, others say the 40's.  Still others say 1958.  Another version dates it to 1960.  

Those who point to the 30's say it was made to celebrate Stalin and Hitler's non-aggression pact.  Those who point to later dates blame German nationalists or Nazi sympathizers.  The local forestry service hasn't been much help, as its records are in disarray and date back only to 1960.  Whatever the case, it should be noted that today it's hard to make out and isn't very accurate.  For one thing it's flat, and not at a 45° angle; for another, it points in the opposite direction of the Nazi swastika.

 

You can read the article yourself if it's not behind a pay wall.  The NYT is tricky that way.

 

This is the best photo we've seen of the swastika, and as you can see, it was either poorly-executed or time hasn't been kind to it, because it takes a little imagination to see the swastika.

But this kind of tree imagery is not the province of fascists alone; the Soviets also did it.  According to this article, Russian photographer Slava Stepanov captured the following image with the aide of a drone. 300-meters long and 82-meters high, one can clearly see the Cyrillic for "Lenin" spelled out with pine trees.  Stepanov figures the work dates back to the 1970's.  1970 was the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, so it's not an improbable estimate.  It's located near the town of Tyukalinsk in the Ornsk region.

 

 

The Telegraph reports on another Lenin tree memorial, but you have to sign up for a free trial to read it.  Wikimapia doesn't have much to say, but it does say the trees spell out "Lenin's 100 Years".  So that 1970 date for the Tyukalinsk version might be on the money.

 

This Twitter account (USSR Pictures) links to yet another Lenin tree memorial near the town of Ivanava.  Not gonna show that photo here, but you get the idea.  I'd be willing to be there are more of these scattered throughout the ex-USSR.

The use of trees to make art is not limited to political statements.  Irish Central reports on a Celtic cross made of trees, saying

The Emmery Celtic Cross, which appeared in Donegal in Fall 2016, was the handiwork of forester Liam Emmery, who sadly passed away before seeing the magnificent final product.

 

 

The cross is 100-meters long and 70-meters wide and is made of two different species of trees.  It is sad that Mr. Emmery died before it was fully-realized; apparently he'd had an accident and lingered for two years before passing on.   I kind of feel bad for including his handiwork in such dubious company, but I think it's interesting that the technique has been in use so recently.  Hats off to you, Mr. Emmery.

 

Apparently the cross should be visible for another 60 to 70 years.  Maybe the local authorities will do something to help it live a little bit longer.

I guess this kind of work would be akin to what is sometimes called "land art", which in effect is a kind of monumental sculpture.  That these works of "tree art" are literally living things is a pretty nifty take on the concept.  Art that grows and changes over time, and eventually, dies.  I guess all art eventually "dies," as even stone erodes.  I myself once made an assemblage topped with a plastic skull which serves as a flower pot, but I keep forgetting to water the damn thing and can't get the plants I've added to really bloom. 

These forest artworks also remind me of what are known as geoglyphs, defined by Wikipedia  as

a large design or motif (generally longer than 4 metres) produced on the ground by durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth.

Geoglyphs can often (but not always) only be seen from the sky, which has prompted more than a few people to speculate they were made for aliens.  Of course they were!  It is possible they were intended to be seen by the gods from the heavens.  It's also possible they weren't intended to be seen at all, which is as fascinating a concept as anything from among the -isms, jisms and paroxysms of high modernism.  

What I've heard referred to as "land art" may be the closest corollary to geoglyphs in the "fine" art world.  The most famous example may be Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970, fancy that), a form chosen perhaps, because so many ancient geo- and petroglyphs are spirals, a symbol some interpret to be a representation of the cosmos.  As above so below:  from the milky way to water down the drain, the universe moves in spirals.  Tornadoes, atoms, DNA...helices ans spirals.  I've even heard it said that the swastika, in a way, represents the same cosmological movement as the spiral.  And the swastika, though sadly tarnished by the Nazis, has been used as a spiritual symbol for millennia in Buddhism, Hinduism, various pagan contexts, even in ancient synagogues (eg Capernaum).

For an idea of just how universal the swastika is:

In various European languages, it is known as the fylfot, gammadion, tetraskelion, or cross cramponnée (a term in Anglo-Norman heraldry); German: Hakenkreuz; French: croix gammée; Italian: croce uncinata; Latvian: ugunskrusts. In Mongolian it is called Хас (khas) and mainly used in seals. In Chinese it is called 卍字 (wànzì) meaning "all things symbol", pronounced manji in Japanese, manja (만자) in Korean and vạn tự / chữ vạn in Vietnamese. 

The most famous of geoglyphs are perhaps the Nazca lines,  built by the Inca in what is now Peru.  These were created in two phases over the millennium between roughly 500 BCE and 500 CE.  Hundreds of these geoglyphs have been found and the largest is over a kilometer in width.  Some of the lines are just that, lines; but there are also animals, flowers and even humanoid forms. No swastikas or Cyrillic, though.  According to National Geographic, there are over 800 lines, 300 geometric patterns and 70 zoomorphic (flowers, animals, humanoids) designs.

The purpose of the Nazca Lines is unknown, although it's generally believed they have religious significance.  Others have suggested they are linked to irrigation patterns, still others to astronomy or astrological calendars.  None of which preclude a religious significance as well.

But these messages to the skies are not limited to South America.  I've been fascinated by the so-called mound builders of North America since I saw my first small mound in St. Mary's, West Virginia, where my dad grew up.  There's even a nearby town called Moundsville.  The Grave Creek Mound is not a geoglyph, but it is the largest conical-type burial mound in North America, standing 63 feet high and 240 feet in diameter at the base.  Many of the mounds are just that, mounds, much like the barrows of England.  

Some of the mounds, known as effigy mounds, are shaped like animals, people, or abstract geometric patterns and like the Nazca lines, often visible only from above.  The are also believed to have served a religious function and some are also burial sites.  Most of the effigy mounds were built in present-day Wisconsin, where as many as 20,000 were though to have existed, but only about 4000 are intact today.

Here's an example known as the the Marching Bear Group from the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa:

The "Mound Builder" culture extended primarily across the American Midwest, with the largest and most complex site located at Cahokia, just outside St Louis, but there are mounds as far south as Florida (there is a site I've visited in Safety Harbor with mounds built by the Tocobago people) and as far north as Canada.  According to the National Park Service, effigy mounds are located primarily in an area that

extends from Dubuque, Iowa, north into southeast Minnesota, across southern Wisconsin from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, and along the Wisconsin–Illinois boundary.

In addition to the aforementioned barrows, there is another form of geoglyph in Great Britain referred to as a "hill figure".  Many were once thought to be ancient, but more sophisticated archeological studies have revealed that many of them, at least in their current form, date to as recently as the 19th century.  The only verifiable ancient hill figure is the Bronze or Iron Age Uffington White Horse, but the most famous is arguably the Cerne Abbas Giant.  His date of origin is unknown, with some saying it was made as recently as the 17th century, others placing it back to circa 1000 BCE.  Other scholars date it to well, just about any time in between.

The giant is a source of great mirth because he's well, rather giant.  A real "size queen's" delight.  I'd say the giant is well-hung, but that thing ain't hanging at all, but shooting skyward like a cock rocket.

(You ever hear of a Japanese motorcycle referred to as a "cock rocket?"  I actually just Googled the term and it seems the phrase has now become associated with Jeff Bezos' New Shepard rocket; it doesn't help that a model of what has been said to "resemble a sex toy" recently went on sale.  For 69 $!)

But I digress.  The Cerne Abbas Giant.  Boiiinngg-g! 

 

In England a few years back I was surprised to see a hill figure near Westbury.  I'd been in the area to visit the magnificent stone circle built in and around the village of Avebury.  Apparently, many hill figures are horses.  This one, the Westbury White Horse, has origins as equally obscure as the Cerne Abbas Giant.  While some say it dates back to the 9th century, real evidence only appears as late as 1778.  Which is odd when you think about it.  These figures are massive, yet know one knows exactly how long they have been there?  The range of dates for the giant and horse are millennia apart.  

 

It's like the Kyrgyzstan swastika.  1930's?  1960'?  Know one knows.  The only two of these giant pieces of land art we can date with any precision are the Emmery cross (2016) and the Hesse swastika (1933).  Even for the latter, there is some uncertainty.  Was it made in 1933?  Or was it made later to commemorate the year Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany?

So, I began this with the intention of adding the Hesse and Kyrgyzstan swastikas to the blog because I'm something of an obsessive completist.  Then Lenin came along.  And Emmery (my apologies, good sir). 

That geoglyphs and hill figures are massive works of art visible either only from the sky or from afar seemed a natural extension of that idea.  Same concept, different tools.  Still using the earth itself as a medium, just in different ways.  As a student of art, with a fascination for architecture, monuments, and the strange, how could I resist?