Native American Culture and New Mexico

Although Rudhyar frequently moved around the United States, he based himself mostly on the West Coast. During the first decades of the century, the American headquarters for the theosophical societies were located in Southern California. The region soon became an important center also for the promotion of new music in America. He later remarked that although he first came to California because he was asked to write music for “the Pilgrimage Play,” he already had “a sort of deep instinct” about the West. As he began to witness an increasing tendency toward materialism and commercialism, he soon realized that he did not really belong to the Los Angeles mentality and life (particularly the Hollywood scene).

But in the early days, Rudhyar was deeply inspired by what he saw. The “American journey” typically embraced a sense of limitlessness, open skies, and vast spaces:

Through its tendency toward archaic presences and sacred symbolism, Native American art tends to display impersonal elements exemplified in a fondness for abstract geometric designs and a lack of narrative. Rudhyar's painting Indian Themes (1944), already discussed in chapter 3 (fig. 4), manifests his fascination with native American subjects of artistic representation. Circular structures and spiral vectors with a dynamic color spectrum—in this case, composed of red, yellow, and the grayscale range—form a dance of contrast and equilibrium. Native American art objects and rituals were also closely linked with the natural processes of opposition and reconciliation, representing the elements of nature and aspects of season cycles.

Rudhyar remained deeply attached to New Mexico throughout his life; he once said, “I still love that country… . It's very strong, but it's been spoiled of course.”