Astrological Aesthetics #5 - Venus Scorpio
If this is your first time reading ‘Astrological Aesthetics,’ consult the first installment to orient yourself.
In our previous installment, we described Earth’s nature as ‘objectlike.’ Air is ‘imagelike,’ and Fire is ‘beinglike,’ more abstract than Earth and Air. Water is even more obscure, like to the nature of moods - elusive and gripping - but its precise nature can be delineated, and consistencies can be exposed. Let’s do that now.
Albin Brunovsky*, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Aquarius (3); Venus sextile Neptune Virgo (5).
Ship and Devil (1971)
Scorpio’s textures are shocking, profuse. Its darkness is tense, thick. It presents overtly and directly as a threat, though much about its real nature remains concealed. Aquarius here contributes the flatness of the image, Virgo its fine & discrete detailing.
Belle Italie (1976)
Although Virgo’s influence here keeps the details distinguishable, Scorpio nonetheless gives the impression of festering pools of rot, teratomatic clumps, diseased & irregular hairs. The way in which the entire image seems turned to face the viewer, possessing no volume nor dimension in itself, is Aquarian.
Ian Miller*, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Sagittarius (3).
Masque of the Red Death (1993)
Cancerous, rotten textures, faces sharply etched. Ugly malevolence spreading rashlike on the mind’s eye; unmanageable, overwhelming. Sagittarius gives the hallucinogenic sway of the scene.
Jim Woodring, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Sagittarius (3); Venus opposite Jupiter Taurus (5); Venus trine Uranus Cancer (5).
Crawling chaos. Taurus’ influence makes the image still; Cancer’s influence produces the ‘tropical’ motifs on the being above, as well as the animals. A square from Mercury to Woodring’s 5th House Moon produces the cartoonish imagery.
Rosaleen Norton, Venus Scorpio (1); 5th House Sagittarius (2) ruled by Jupiter Gemini (4).
Black Magic (1949)
Devils, breasts, witches, consuming darkness: Scorpio. Gemini produces the cartoonish flash & twist, while the sense of seeing images from many different places all heaped up before you is the product of Sagittarius.
Bruce Gilden*, possibly Venus Scorpio (1)* ruled by Mars Scorpio (3); if not, then Venus Sagittarius (1) ruled by Jupiter Scorpio (3).
In Ballaro Market (2019)
Rotten, scaly, pock-marked flesh, obsessing the eye but repelling the hand.
Dewayn, Des Moines, Iowa, USA (2014)
Pustules are Scorpionic; when Scorpio engages colour, it does so boldly, strikingly, in a way which compels a gory fascination.
Herve Di Rosa, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Sagittarius (3) square to Pluto Virgo (7); 5th House Gemini (2) ruled by Mercury Sagittarius (4).
Les deux vagabonds et le simplon (The Two Vagabonds and the Simplon) (1988)
Poisonous bright colours, staring eyes. When Scorpio’s not festering, it bursts & undulates hypnotically. Gemini makes the cartoonishness, spirals & squiggles, while Virgo makes the lines clean & solid.
Tatsuki Fujimoto*, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Cancer (3); Venus sextile Neptune Capricorn (5).
Chainsaw Man, Tankobon Vol 1-3 (2019)
More high-contrast, radioactive, unnatural colours. Violence. Breasts. Metallic matte-shaded flesh & businesswear results from Capricorn’s influence. Cancer pastellizes & softens various colours.
Charles Lapicque, Venus Scorpio (1) ruled by Mars Cancer (3); 5th House Taurus (2).
Bassin de St. Marc la nuit (1955)
Taurus’ influence heaps forms together but its rulership by Scorpio prevents this from being entirely restful. Cancer once again gives us pastel colours.
Chesley Bonestell*, Venus-Jupiter Scorpio (1) opposite Neptune Taurus (5).
Close-Up of Another Sun (1948)
Toxic, inhuman colours. Inhospitable. Jupiter’s conjunction to Venus spaces out the raw hostility of Scorpio, puts it at a remove: What presents itself as alien to your existence is only abstractly threatening.
Saturn as Seen from Iapetus (1944)
Abstract horror. Cosmic emptiness. Death and hostility at such a scale that one can only respond to it intellectually. That is Venus-Jupiter Scorpio.
More to come.