Fundamentals
of Symbolism
Part
II
From the Renaissance to Modern Times
by
Before examining the changes in symbolic expression evoked by Renaissance thought, some historical background is required. While the Catholic symbolism described at the close of the first part of this study remained largely intact within Western culture, the introduction of divergent cosmologies wrought some subtle and not so subtle changes.
There is little consensus among historians as to when or how the so-called
Renaissance came about, but most would agree that an affirmation of the dignity
of man was the result. While the Church had always insisted that man was made
"in the image and likeness of God" and therefore worthy of the
highest respect, his status as a creature was strictly maintained. Man, to
reach his proper end, the beatific vision, needed Sanctifying Grace supplied
through the sacraments of the Church. Renaissance thought, at first subtly and
then openly, challenged this view. Between 1437 and 1439 Nicholas of Cusa
started the process when he wrote his De docta ignorantia based on a
private illumination he received while crossing the sea between
Pico had no open desire to break with the Christian faith, but according to
his concept of unlimited human potential, the advent of Christ, the Word
Incarnate, did not inaugurate a new supernatural order embodied in the Church,
but stimulated, a rebirth of natural man and human potential. In the words of
Walter Ulmam, "Through [Baptism] there was a rebirth of natural man;
through this restoration into his natural state, cosmological perspectives came
to be opened up which were hitherto barely perceived ... Natural man was awakened
from the slumber of the centuries: he was reactivated." 3
The Renaissance concept of the dignity of man did not draw on a new
secularization of culture as is generally taught, but rather on a synthesis of
ancient esoteric religious and philosophical ideas enumerated by Pico in his Oration.
These ideas, mostly of oriental origin, had inundated
Key to the doctrine of
Neo-Platonism, was Plotinus' idea that the universe was not created ex
nihilo as the Church insisted, but that both the cosmos and man were
emanations, or "overflowings" of the Divine substance. 5 Thus Ficino and his contemporaries
conceptualized the entire universe or "Macrocosm" as a "Divine
Animal" divinum animal, animated by a "Cosmic Mind" mens
mundana connected to God, and a "Cosmic Soul" anima mundi, which
though spiritual, is connected to matter. "An uninterrupted current
of supernatural energy flows from above to below and reverts from below to
above, thus forming a circuitus spiritualis." 6 Analogically,
Man, the "Microcosm" has a
"lower soul" anima secunda connected to the material world and
a "higher soul" intellectus or mens that is connected
to and even participates in the Divine Mind, intellectus divinus. 7 The illustration to the left depicts man
the "microcosm" superimposed over the "macrocosm." In it we
see both the cosmos and man as matter suffused with divinity centered on the
generative principle. Man the "microcosm" is also the subject matter
of the image to the right, "Vitruvian Man," drawn by Leonardo
da Vinci c. 1510. In this image, man qua man rather than the unique
person of Jesus Christ, true God - true man, is depicted as the embodiment of
the perfect union of the spiritual heavens - the circle- and the material earth
- the square-.
The
Renaissance "Humanists" (Those who believed in divine human
potential) also, as enunciated by Pico, based much of their theology on the
eclectic writings of a supposed pre-Mosaic Egyptian sage named Hermes
Trismegistus translated into Latin by Ficino in 1463. His monistic definition
of God and the cosmos as: "Deus est sphaera infinita cuijus centrum est
ubique nusquam circumferentiae"(God is an infinite sphere whose center
is everywhere but whose circumference is nowhere) was fundamentally identical
to that of the Neo-Platonists but he stressed man's innate divine nature even
more. In the, Pimander, supposedly written by Trismegistus, it is
stated, "He who knows himself goes toward himself...You are light and
life, like God the Father of whom man is born." "If therefore you
learn to know yourself as made of light and life... you will return to
life." 8 As Elaine Pagels
points out in her book The Gnostic Gospels, the doctrine of a secret
knowledge of man's innate divinity is the central doctrine of the
"Gnosticism" that began its battle against Christianity as far back
as the second century AD. 9 Most
people think of Gnosticism in terms of its Manechean, or dualist manifestation
calling for the release of the soul trapped in matter, however, as A. J.
Fustigiere, has explained, the Hermetic writings actually contained two
distinct types of divine "gnosis," namely pessimist gnosis, and
optimist gnosis. For the pessimist (or dualist) Gnostic, the material world,
heavily impregnated with the fatal influence of the stars is in itself evil; it
must be escaped from by an ascetic way of life which avoids as much as possible
all contact with matter, until the lightened soul rises up through the spheres
of the planets, casting off their evil influences as it ascends, to its true
home in the immaterial divine world. For the optimist Gnostic, however, matter
is impregnated with the divine life, the earth lives, moves, with divine life,
the stars are living divine animals, the sun burns with divine power, there is
no part of nature which is not good for all are parts of God. 10 ( see: Appendix_three
Gnosis)
Unlike
Gallileo some two hundred years later, the great Polish churchman and
mathematician, Nicholas Copernicus, credited with the discovery of the helio-centric
nature of the Cosmos relied more on Neo-Platonism and the Hermetica for his
position than on scientific observation of the actual Solar System. In his De
Rrevolutionibus Orbium Coelestum, written in 1453, he has the following to
say, "In the middle of all sits the Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful
temple, could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can
illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind,, the
Ruler of the Universe: Hermes Trismegistus names him the Visible God, Sophecles
Electra calls him the All-Seeing. So the Sun sits upon a royal throne, ruling
his children, the planets which circle around him."11
It must be remembered that for the Neo-Platonists, the planets and stars, as
well as the sun were "divine living animals." (Ficino and his
followers practiced sympathetic magic and chanted Orphic hymns to obtain the
beneficial influences of these "star demons.") 12
Along with Hermeticism
and Neoplatonism the third major influence on the times, cited by Pico, is the
Jewish theosophical Kabbalah, or Cabala in its latinate form. Pico received his
indoctrination from a Spanish Jew living in
Given the essentially
monistic nature of Renaissance thought as seen above, it is symbolically
represented as an Eastern "Mandala" rather than as a dyadic
relationship between God and creation and/or Christ and His Church seen in the
Byzantine and medieval iconography covered in the first part of this treatise.
While the Church maintained her doctrine of Original sin and the necessity of
Redemption, the humanists, in general, rejected it. Following Nicholas of
Cusa's doctrine of Coincidentia oppositorum 16 and the kabbalist's tikkun to produce apokatastasis
or resolution of al negations ultimately in the unity of God, the iconography
changed, or reverted to, images of balance between the opposing cosmic forces.
Erasmus, for example,
denied
In light of the above observations as to Renaissance thought, it is interesting to look at some of the greatest art produced during this period for Humanist patrons. They will be studied not so much for their superb quality as works of genius, but to discern the iconography and symbolism to be found within them.
According to oft quoted authority, Irwin Panofsky, in his Studies in
Iconology, Humanist Themes in Art of the Renaissance, art works may be
analyzed from three separate points of view. The first is the formalistic,
that is, how the lines, shapes, and colors are arranged in an orderly and
harmonies fashion to be enjoyed sensibly by the viewer. Second is the subject
matter, that is whom or what does the picture represent, and third is the meaning,
or "iconography in its deepest sense." Panofsky goes on to say that
this "meaning" is apprehended by ascertaining those underlying
principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, period class, a
religious or philosophical persuasion - unconsciously qualified by one
personality and condensed into one work. Panofsky also points out that the
artist himself most often does not fully comprehend the depth of his message. 17 Following are interpretations of three
famous paintings that can be examined from all three perspectives, keeping in
mind, however, the words of another Renaissance scholar, Edgar Wind, writing in
his seminal book, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. "They
were designed for initiates; hence they require an initiation." 18
In
1492, at the death of Lorenzo de Medici, patron of both the arts and the
Platonic Academy, an inventory was made of his belongings and among them was a
circular painting, tondo, depicting the adoration of the Christ Child
hanging in the main entrance hall of his palace. This painting begun in 1455 by
the Dominican monk Giovanni da Fiesole (Fra Angelico), the year of his death,
was finished by Carmelite brother, Filppo Lippi. The painting now hangs in the
National Gallery of Art in
As a Humanist icon, it is first of all presented in a circular or mandala format representative of the enclosed cosmos. Above, on the roof, a peacock, symbol of eternal life and the immortal soul since the time of the catacombs stands stage right. A pair of mating pheasants, creatures of the wild, are shown stage left. This follows the standard iconographical formula and represents the spiritual (m) and carnal (f) aspects of the cosmos as under stood in the Neo Platonic cosmology.
Central
to the theme of the picture is the seated Madonna and Christ Child, known to
have been painted by Fra Angelico receiving the homage of virtually all mankind
as well as the beasts. In the image, however, the Baby Jesus is not looking at
the figure kneeling before him in adoration, but downward onto a small round
object on his left thigh. This object, obviously painted in afterwards, either
by Fra Filippo or some other hand, has an eye and menacing teeth. From an
orthodox Catholic perspective it is symbolically out of place. Following the
Neo-platonist theory explained above regarding the coincidentia oppositorum
and the Kabbalistic notion that "God", the Ayn Sof, is the
source of both good and evil, it makes perfect sense. It thus may be presumed
that this little circular figure represents the incarnation of the sitra
ahra or left hand "evil - restrictive" aspect of the divinity
united in Christ, the archetype of all humanity. If this is, in fact, the case,
a Humanist "initiate" would immediately recognize the message; both
the macrocosm and the microcosm are ultimately formed by a
harmonious fusion of all opposites.
Another
examples of Renaissance art wherein the meaning and symbolic structure may be
of more interest than the splendid technique is the well known drawing by
Leonardo Da Vinci titled The Virgin and Child with St. Ann. Executed in
1498-9 as a cartoon (preparatory sketch) for a larger commissioned work. It is
one of the most enigmatic pictures in art history and has been the object of
multitudinous critiques, commentaries and evaluations. In his 1939 biography of
Leonardo, Kenneth Clark took the then prevailing formalist view, and
described this picture as, "the contrast of interlocking rhythms enclosed
within a single shape." While
stating that the overall desired shape sought by Leonardo is the pyramid, Lord
Clark wondered out loud why the two female heads at the top are in equilibrium
rather than the aesthetically more correct ascending order. On the whole,
however, Clark brushes off any inconsistencies within his own preconceived
notion of what the picture is about and equates the picture to a masterpiece by
Bach were one may always find: " ...new facilities of movement and
harmony, growing more and more intricate, yet subordinate to the whole." 20 In the 1967 edition of this same book,
Lord Clark modified his aesthetic critique of Leonardo's work by saying that he
had tried too hard to separate Leonardo the artist from Leonardo the man, in
regard to this picture. He then added what he called a profound and beautiful
interpretation by Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, Leonardo spent the first
years of his life with his natural mother, the peasant Caterina. Leonardo's
father, Ser Piero, however, after his marriage a year later to another woman,
which turned out to be fruitless, eventually brought his love child to be reared
by his lawful wife. Thus, according to Freud, Leonardo had two mothers, both of
whom he loved, and hence the equilibrium of the two female heads at the top of
this composition. Leonardo has, again according to Freud, unconsciously
produced two mysteriously smiling faces of approximately the same age emerging
from what strangely appears to be one body. 21
Without questioning the integrity of Lord Clark or Sigmund Freud, for that matter, I invite the reader to carefully study this picture for its visual content and then consider once again its title. In this picture there are at the top the two smiling female heads as witnessed by Dr. Freud, and they do, in fact, appear to emerge from a single mass or body. There are also two semi naked children who not only appear to be of the same age, but who bear a striking resemblance to each other. They could almost be identical twins except that the one on the left has shorter hair, a broad forehead and a more intense expression. In contrast, the child fully to stage left with his massive curls, leaning languidly on his elbow, has a more passive sentimental posture and look. Between the two children, closer to the child at stage left, a hand with index finger extended points heavenward. This hand visually links the female head toward stage left (St. Anne?), to the child at stage left.(John the Baptist?) Now think of the title, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. According to Christian tradition, St. Anne was historically the mother of the Virgin Mary and should therefore be rendered at least fifteen years her senior. One may, of course, accept Freud's theory but it does not explain the children. If Freud is right and there are unconscious sublimations contained in this picture, who does the child at stage left represent and why is he there? According to the title one assumes he is John the Baptist. Why, however, would the ascetic John the Baptist be represented, even as a child, as a baleful languid twin of the Christ Child? Leonardo was well acquainted with the biblical traditions and certainly had the technical ability to portray what so ever he wished to portray.
If
the pictorial content does not appear to coincide with the official title given
the picture by the painter himself, what then is this picture all about? Regarding
the two heads emerging from the one body, look again at these faces. The face
on the left, (stage right) theoretically Mary, is all sweetness and light. The
one, toward stage left, theoretically Mary's mother, not only appears the same
age but, in fact, is physically a mirror image of Mary. She has, however, a
dark and sinister mien. She smiles but it is not the gentle smile of motherly
goodness; it is a quizzical, almost threatening smile.
This single bodied but double natured woman, appears as both good and evil, the mother of life but also the destroyer, like the Hindu goddess Kali, who gives birth to all, but also drinks the blood of her victims from their own skulls. Does she not represent here Mother Nature, the macrocosm, in which all opposites exist?
And the children? Instead of Jesus and John, could they not just as well be identified with Castor and Pollux, the twins born of Zeus and Leda the fruit of unnatural lust in the pagan myth (equally well known to Leonardo) or, perhaps, the Gemini, the twins of astrological lore who represent the fundamental duality of the cosmos?
The one to stage right,
with his composure and Apollonian reason appears to be blessing the unruly left
hand, or Dionesiac twin side of his very own nature. As neither Leonardo nor
his contemporaries have left us written explanations, the answer is, of course,
a matter of speculation. However, given an understanding of Renaissance
theology explained above, and the basic right-left, up-down form of symbolic
expression we have previously examined, it would appear that the woman toward
stage left with her "facia nigra" as representative of the
dark "occult" forces, is pointing upward to tell the initiated viewer
that both the light and dark, or good and evil forces of nature, the macrocosm,
come from God and that through the coincidentia oppositorum or
the resolution of opposites, man, the microcosm, will return thence - (apokatastasis)-.
Perhaps the most interesting symbolic
portrayal of the Renaissance ideal of coincidentia oppositorum, is
Giorgione's Tempesta or storm. Little is known of the provenance or
early history of this picture other than that it was painted some time after
1504. First documented in 1530 as a landscape with a tempest, a gypsy and a
soldier, it is probably the most discussed and analyzed paintings of the
Renaissance. A nineteenth century inventory lists it as an allegory of Mercury
(Hermes ) and
From
a simple iconographical point of view, this painting is truly archetypal and
follows the standard: left-right; above-below analysis to perfection. The male
with an enlarged codpiece and the staff (baton de commandemant) stands
stage right surmounted by a stone edifice (man the builder). The female with
her head covered by a veil (symbol of mystery) is seated stage left beneath the
leafy trees (woman, nature, nurturer). It should be noted that the veil, or
mystery, which covers the woman's head comes up from below. She and her power
are of the earth. Above is the natural element of lightning associated with
celestial power and therefore masculine. Below is the natural feminine principle
of water. Central to the painting are two truncated columns. These columns or
pillars, as we have seen since Solomon's
The Council of Trent (1545 - 1563), while generally remembered for its
stance against the Protestant Reformation, officially renounced the Humanist
ideology as well, and subsequently placed many of the writings of its
proponents including Pico, Reuchlin and Erasmus on the Index of
forbidden books. The writings of
The visual arts that
proceeded from the Council of Trent are known to those art historians enamored
of the Classical norm, as Baroque, a derogatory term derived from the
Portuguese word for an imperfect pearl. However, following the Thomistic
doctrine that nature is not destroyed, but transformed by grace, they evoke a
hierarchical vision of engraced souls leading upward and opening into the
transcendental realm of the Beatific Vision. The image at the left is of the
The "Humanists," however, having lost official recognition by the
Catholic authorities continued to flourish in Protestant lands as secret
brotherhoods such as the Rosicrucians who first appeared to the public through
such publications as the Fama and the Confessio in
In the Protestant
countries, the symbolism of the Rosicrucians was openly similar to that of the
Humanist initiates of the Renaissance seen above as in the Tempesta of
Giorgione; a fusion of the natural male (active) and female principles
(passive) in polarity. In the anonymous German,
John Dee, necromancer, court astrologer and magician of Queen
Elizabeth I of
Symbolically, here
again are seen the two columns associated with the (male) sun and (female) moon
standing stage left and right respectively. Between the columns is what can
only be described as the "Orphic" egg. According to the Orphic tradition
(Rhapsodies), at the beginning of time the cosmic egg was formed in
which Eros - Phanes, the god of love and light, mated with his daughter Nux,
night - darkness, to bring forth Uranos the sky and Gaia the
earth. This cosmogony is represented in
It is, in fact, under the broad umbrella of Freemasonry where all of the above "Humanist" values can be found to this day. While the ostensible goals of Freemasonry are philanthropy and human development, the true goal is philosophic and ultimately religious. The index of any of the best known Masonic encyclopedias, i.e., Mackey, Pike, Waite, list the same spiritual influences (Neo-Platonism, Orphism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, etc.) upon which the Craft is based, curiously similar to those pronounced by Pico della Mirandola in 1469. 29 See: Appendix 6 also www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/venzifr.html It is also within Freemasonry where the twin pillars are most widely exhibited and explained. Albert Pike, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, in his Morals and Dogma of Freemasonry, identifies them as follows:
"You
enter[ed] the Lodge between two columns... The pillar or column on the right,
or in the south, was named, as the Hebrew word is rendered in our translation
of the Bible, JACHIN: and that on the left BOAZ. Our translators say that the
first word means, "He shall establish;" and the second, "In
it is strength."...The former word also means he will establish, or
plant in an erect position- from the (Hebrew) verb Kun, he stood erect.
It probably meant active and vivifying Energy and Force; and Boaz, Stability,
Permanence, in the passive sense." 30
In explaining "The Royal Secret" of these pillars, Pike goes
on to posit the inner duality or bi-sexuality of the Godhead itself. Man,
according to Pike exists as both Male and Female as symbolic of the intrinsic
divine duality: " [God]...the Ineffable Name, and dividing it, it becomes
bi-sexual ...and discloses its meaning ...The highest of which the Columns
Jachin and Boaz are the symbol. 'In the image of Deity,' we are told, 'God
created the Man; Male and Female.'"31
Pike not only posits the existence of the dual existence of male and female
within the Godhead, but the existence of good and evil as well: "The Evil
is the shadow of the Good and inseparable from it. The Divine Wisdom limits by
equipoise the Omnipotence of the Divine Will or Power, and the result is Beauty
or Harmony. The arch rests not on a single column, but springs from one on
either side." 32
This
concept of harmony is at the core of the image shown to the left. Included in a
variety of Masonic texts and periodicals, it is, in fact, an "icon"
of the Masonic faith and represents, "The religions of the world."
Among these religions one finds, for example, Mithraism in the lower
left corner, Judaism at the center with the seven branched Menorah
beneath a sacrificial lamb, a Muslim imam, Persian fire worshipers, and the
Egyptian cult of Hathor, among others. (The Crucifix is conspicuous by
its absence.). The most important element of all, however, is the object of
worship of these devotees. Riding the clouds at the top are a woman (stage
right) crowned with six stars and a tiny crescent moon on her head and a
serpent at her feet. There is a young man to her left, blessing with his left
hand. The Zodiac arches above them in an enclosing circle. (One might think
that the woman is perhaps the Virgin Mary as she often appears crowned with
twelve stars while treading the serpent in Catholic art. Catholics, however, do
not worship Mary_as a divinity. This image simply
represents the dual natured "Complete God" worshipped by Masons as
described above by Albert Pike.
[For the Freemason, the "Complete God," is comprised of both good
and evil personified principles, however, the traditional roles are reversed.
The "good" God is the natural (f) emancipator who offers
freedom, and the "evil" one is the transcendental (m)God of
restriction, as seen by the following quote by Pike. " The pavement,
alternately black and white, symbolize the Good and Evil Principles of the
Egyptian and Persian creed. It is the battle between the forces of light and
shadow; Day and Night; Freedom and Despotism; Religious Liberty and the
Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church that thinks for its votaries, and whose Pontiff
claims to be in fallible, and the decretals of its Councils to constitute a
gospel." 34 – ("Lucifer Quote" ) ]
Thus, the feminine figure seen above represents the Gnostic divinization of
the feminine principle (
For
many of the Neoplatonists, the very vision of God was the contemplation of
divine beauty in a state of erotic trance. This mystical vision was complete
when, although still in this life, one received the Kabbalistic "mors
osculi" or "kiss of death" from the Venus Celeste source
of all beauty and wisdom 35 Whereas the Venus Celeste or Celestial
Venus and the Venus Vulgare or Earthly Venus were theoretically distinct
in the writings of Marcilio Ficino, for Bocaccio in his Questo Amoroso Fuoco
the two are clearly linked.
Perhaps the greatest exposition of this line of thought, however, emerged in
the writings of Giordano Bruno who was condemned and burnt for heresy in 1600.
Antedating Freud by some 300 years, Bruno set forth the doctrine in his De
Vinculis in Genere that, " [erotic] love rules the world, the
strongest chain is that of Venus. Eros is lord of the world: he pushes directs
and appeases every one. All other bonds are reduced to that one, as we see in
the animal kingdom where no female and no male tolerate rivals, even forgetting
to eat and drink, even at the risk of life itself." 35 He maintained, however, that this drive
could and ought to be contained and willfully directed. For Bruno the Eroici
Furori, the Heroic Fury of the poets and artists was the distillation of
erotic furor and an assault on heaven. Through Eros man could, indeed,
become god. 38
The watershed work embodying
the Erotic nature of the Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Kabbalistic Renaissance
thinkers was Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera or Springtime painted in
1477. Not only does the painting portray a bucolic scene from the pagan past
with nostalgia, it contains within its very core an imaginative portrayal of
the erotic nature of Renaissance thought. "Primavera" was most
probably painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, a Neoplatonic enthusiast and
cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. There is little doubt that it reflects an
allegorical expression as well as artistic achievement. According to
Renaissance scholar, Edgar Wind, the key to this painting lies in the words of
Pico della Mirandola, that "the unity of Venus unfolds in the trinity of
the graces" and that this simile pervades the totality of universal pagan
myth. 37 In Primavera,
following Plotinus and Pico, there are nine figures which form an Ennead,
that is to say an emanation in multiples of three. Central to the painting,
although somewhat to our right, is the goddess [Venus, Isis] herself. On our
right hand (stage left), [female or nature side] is the triad of Zephyr or
West wind, Chloris the innocent earth nymph, and Flora, the
resplendent herald of Spring. On our left hand (stage right) [male or God side]
is, from the center outward, the group depicting the three graces Pulchritude
or beauty, Castitas Chastity and Voluptas pleasure, and to
the farthest left and separate from them, Mercury the divine mystagogue 39 with his caduceus (entwined
serpent staff) dispelling the clouds from the upper left hand corner. At the
top center is blind Cupid or Eros firing his love dart at the
figure of Chastity.
The
first triad, then is that of Zephyr, Chloris, and Flora, pictured
here on the right. In this scene, which follows the Fasti of Ovid, Zephyr
the soft breeze of spring [incipient erotic desire] caresses the fleeing
innocent nymph Chloris who, spewing flowers on her breath, is thus
turned through a metamorphoses into Flora. Flora as harbinger of
spring is the culmination of natural beauty and is depicted as fully formed
erotic woman. As such she is the source and also the fruition of earthly
desire, Venus Vulgare. Flora stands self consciously erect in the
knowledge that she is the highest manifestation of nature. She occupies the
dominant position stage left to the eternal feminine manifestation Venus
Celeste, Isis, Ishtar, Astarte, the great goddess, at
the center.
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Stage right (God or
Spirit side) to the great goddess are her emanations, the three Graces, who
dance in a spiritual sublimation of erotic desire. In the center of these is Castitas
or Chastity, neatly coifed shy and melancholy. To her left is the sensuous Voluptas
or pleasure. To her right is the decorous figure of haughty Pulchretudo or
Beauty. They, in fact, form a trinity of purpose. All three have their hands
tightly united above and below in what Horace called the "segnesque
nodum solvere Gratiae" or knot of the Graces. 40 The final and most important triad in
this Ennead, however, is made up of the prime movers of the whole scene Eros
(male) above, Venus (the eternal feminine) below, and Mecurius (the
divine fusion of opposites) reaching upward at stage right. Once human passion
has been awakened as depicted in the scene of Zephyr, Chloris and
Flora the stage is set for the erotic fulfillment of man through the
desire embodied in Pulchretudo, Castitas and Voluptas. From his
position above, blind (desire devoid of rational judgement) Eros fires
his dart at Castitas. Castitas’ diaphanous garment falls from her
left shoulder as desire enters her heart. She looks longingly at Mercurius while
Voluptas looks knowingly at her. The spark of divine rapture, of
ecstasy, has been enkindled. The "heroic Fury" of the poet to convert
desire to fruition is achieved by Mercurius. It is he, who with his Caduceus
(entwined male and female serpents) reaches beyond the golden apples of earthly
desire. It is he, Mercurius Duplex, the concordia discors or
fusion of opposites [spirit and matter] who draws back the clouds of mystery
(upper corner, stage right) to reveal the divine form. It is the Mors Osculi
or Kiss of death that awaits.
Following
are two paintings, Giovanni Bellini’s Feast of the Gods painted in 1514,
and Nicholas Pousin’s Kingdom of Flora painted in 1631. While painted a hundred
years apart and depicting different pagan myths share a consistent iconography.
Ostensibly Bellini’s painting simply shows a bucolic scene in which gods and
goddesses as well as nymphs and satyrs indulge themselves without inhibition.
Iconographically, however, the picture is laid out in the universal right (m) –
left (f), above – below presentation and contains what Panofsky called meaning,
or "iconography in its deepest sense." It should be remembered that
this concept of "meaning" as used by Panofsky, as explained above, refers
to a distilled presentation of cultural, religious, or philosophical values
that define a an age yet may not be fully understood, if at all, by the artist.
The scene is a shaded earthly glade while in the background (perhaps painted by
Titian), Mount Parnassus ascends to the heavens. Stage right, Mars the
quintessential violent male god of war, surrounded by a debauched male
entourage looks longingly at a bare-breasted Venus with her female attendants
who is being awakened by a male rustic. Between the two celestial figures, sits
a rustic or peasant couple with the man’s hand groping the woman’s crotch.
This painting is not meant to be pornographic, but esoteric. It follows the Emerald
Table of Hermes Trismegistus, "The below is as the above, and the above
is as below." The awakening of lust below awakens desire between the gods
above and vice-versa. The Venus Vulgare and the Venus Celeste are
one and the same and, as in Boticelli’s Primavera, the beatific vision
is but rarefied lust.
.
Pousin’s Kingdom of
Flora, again, has the same classic right – left, above – below
layout. Ostensibly the theme is taken from a tale in Ovid’s Metamorphosis
that recounts how various heroes and demigods were turned to flowers at their
death. Once again, stage right is the figure of a male Herm, or erect
column statue of Priapus, god of male fertility. Beneath him is Ajax,
who falls on his own sword after being denied the armor of Achilles. Hyacinths
were said to have grown from his blood that spilled on the ground. Stage
left, the lovers Krokos and Smilax erotically recline. According to Ovid, they
were accordingly turned into saffron. All the male figures at stage left are
curiously androgynous.
In the center, above is Apollo, the sun god and below is Flora dispensing her magic upon Narcissus and Echo, who skrie the future from the waters of the urn. Iconographically, again in its deepest unconscious sense, this painting speaks of the death of the male principle, (Patriarchal authority) here seen as Ajax, (stage right) and the triumph of the feminine or earthly principle of erotic fulfillment symbolized by Flora and the androgynous group (stage left). These are the first stirrings of the "Romantic" full divinization of "The Eternal Feminine" which will be found especially in the writings of Wolgang Frederich Von Goethe.
In his 1782 treatise Die Natur, Goethe wrote "Nature! We are
surrounded and enveloped by her – unable to step outside her, unable to get
into her more deeply. Un-asked and unwarned, she takes us up into the circle of
her dance and carries us along till we are wearied and fall from her arms…Men
are all in her and she in all…Even the most unnatural is Nature , even the
crudest pedantry still has at touch of her genius…Life is her fairest
invention, death but her artifice whereby to have much life… All is there in
her always. She knows not past nor future. Present is her eternity. And she is
good and I praise her in all her works." 41
This theme of "
Divine Nature" caught on among the intelligentsia and was picked up in the
early nineteenth century by such artists as William Blake, David Friederich,
and Philip Otto Runge, among others. Rung expressed his experience of the
immanent divinity of Nature as "…the feeling of the whole universe with
us; this united chord which in its vibration touches every string of our
heart;…here is the highest that we divine- God"42
To the right of the page is Runge’s 1809 painting titled: "The Times of
Day, Morning" designed as a sacred picture for a chapel dedicated to the
new religion of nature. At the center of the painting is the figure of Nature
herself in the guise of Aurora, the emerging dawn. She is surrounded by adoring cherubs,
flowers, and other natural elements and below her is, not the Christ Child, but
the new emancipated child of Nature. This painting is diametrically opposed to
the Byzantine Anastais icon reviewed at the end of part one. In
that painting, representing the end of time, the Glorified Christ stood between
the two rock escarpments converging over Him as he raised the just and cast
bound Satan into Hell. In direct contrast, Runge’s painting depicts
The great Romantic Sculptor, Antonio Canova, carved the “Three Graces” as a feminine Trinity of lesbian erotica in 1815
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Diego Rivera’s 1928 mural., to the left, La Tierra Liberada, El Paraiso Reconquistado, in Chapingo, Mexico, is a further example of a "Revolutionary Icon" dedicated to Nature as Great Goddess. Her naked figure fills the heavens as recipient of the "spirit." Just beneath her is a "Mandala" symbol with its "bindu" at the center (as formed by a windmill) connecting the earthly and heavenly realms. With her right hand she offers a life form to the woman below to stage right, while Promethius, stage left, offers the stolen fire to the man. The "divine child," of the new emancipated humanity, touches wires together setting off sparks that will set progress in motion. Once again, this is the complete antithesis of the Anastasis , the Pantocrator, or any other Christian icon. The mural to the right by Jose Orozco, Omnesciencia painted at the same period is another example of the deposition and replacement of Christ with the "Feminine Principle" at the heart of Mexican Revolutionary art. |
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The paradigm shift from
the Judeo-Christian acknowledgment and worship of the transcendent patriarchal
God to the immanent goddess, mother Nature, is reflected as well in the two
following "icons." To the left of the page is "The High
Priestess" from A.E. Waite’s 1910 The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, and to
the right , Christy Swid’s Belthane, from the1986 cover of Pathways
a "New Age" health journal. They are two versions of the same theme,
the emergent power of the "feminine principle." In Waite’s Tarot
card, the traditional columns, Jachin and Boaz have been
reversed, and in Swid’s rendition they have not only been reversed but changed
into trees to emphasize the polarity within nature itself.
An interesting variant is seen in Vincent Desiderio’s 2002 triptych titled "Pantocrator" from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art collection. The naked woman in the shower represents the feminine principle as dominant at stage right and the Florentine Baptistry where Brunelleschi is said to have discovered analytic "perspective" is placed as the passive male principle at stage left. At the center of this obvious reversal of the traditional order is the "Panocrator" (Lord of all) the Byzantine title for Christ, save in this case it is a "flying saucer" presumably filled with "alien" masters. This painting represents a mystery of faith where all takes place within an enclosed deified cosmos heedless of the Transcendent Creator and His Divine Son, Jesus Christ, unique mediator between Heaven and earth.
The image of God as eternal Transcendental “Father” has all but disappeared from modern iconology and has been replaced by the “Eternal Feminine” of immanent earthly spirituality.
At
the present time, in fact, New Age icons abound. Many are represented as
classic oriental Mandalas. The1991 painting at the left by Bev Doolittle
was offered in the Smithsonian Magazine as the "Spirit of the Earth"
and places the Bindu, or point of contact with the divine, on the Native
American rider at the center. The picture at the right is taken from a 1993
advertisement in the Washington Times. It was a call for essays regarding the
subject of democracy, a noble topic, which is unfortunately represented, however,
as a classic oriental T’ai-Chi image of equal black and white yin-yang
hemispheres representing the antinomian fusion of opposites in an impersonal
cosmic order.
Regretfully
mandala imagery has crept into the iconography of the Roman Catholic
Church. The image at the left is the logo of the Jubilee Year in Rome marking
2000 years of Christianity. At the center of the mandala is the
"divine" bindu a nebulous light surrounded by five (Kabalistic
number for man) doves – representing the diverse spiritualities of man? They
are joined together by what Carl Jung referred to as a "solar"
"cross of equilibrium."43
The words within the circle say Christus, Heri, Hodie, Semper (Christ,
yesterday, today, always). But, what Christ? Which Christianity?
By the time of the Second Vatican Council, two divergent ideologies regarding the "image of God" in man came into conflict. They have yet to be resolved. The first ideology is the traditional view as put forward in the Creeds (Christ is the unique Son of God) and reaffirmed at the Council of Trent. It is most simply explained by St. Thomas Aquinas. "The image of a thing may be found in something in two ways. In one way, it is found in something of the same specific nature; as the image of the king is found in his son. In another way, it is found in something of a different nature, as the king’s image on a coin. In the first sense the Son is Image of the Father; in the second sense, man is called the image of God." ST, 1, 35, R3. The true "image of God" in man is achieved only by Baptism into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, whereby we become sons "by adoption."
The second ideology is the modernist view that "God is immanent in man and the cosmos." This erroneous view was denounced by St. Pius X in his encyclical letter Pascendi dominici gregis,: esp. The Modernist as Theologian #19. It is based on the Neo-Platonic, Kabalistic, Hermetic, Renaissance theology as well as the19th century, especially French, Masonic occultism described above, (as enunciated in the afterward by Hans Urs Von Balthasar to the anonymous Meditations on the Tarot, 44) as well as by the German Romanticism described above which culminates in the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher:
"The essential difference between the Redeemer and the redeemed
consists in the prototypal dominance of the God-consciousness in the
Redeemer, into whose fellowship the believer may be admitted by a process
substantially analogous to the formation of a human society around a
charismatic leader, who unites them by his vision of their future state." 45 (emphasis
added)
See: Modernists
Much,
if not most, of the late twentieth century iconography is based on the latter.
The picture to the left is the cover piece of the Fall 2003 publication of the CMMB (Catholic Medical Missions board). This particular issue dedicated to the problem of HIV/AIDS in Africa. In and of itself, it is tender rendering of an African mother and child with two doves looking on. Two barely visible transparent arms come down from the doves (spirits) and gently embrace the mother. The child holds an eight-petaled sunflower on which he fixes his gaze. At the center of the flower, (enlarged image to the right) however there is a classic Hindu eight-spoked wheel of life mandala, complete with bindu point, thus rendering the painting a religious icon of the monistic (God is nature – nature is God) one world religion variety.
While the icon cited above
is displayed on an unofficial Catholic publication the image here shown to the
left is taken from a 1992 publication of The Secretariat for Latin America of
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It shows a man singing to the sun
and a woman enthralled by a budding flower. There is a male worker, stage
right, and a mother with child, stage left. Instead of the two usual columns,
there are two rivers (with fish) presumably in reference to equal male and
female living waters. The top and bottom of the image are clearly defined by
thick stripes suggesting an enclosed reality dominated by the sun (father sky)
and fertility (mother earth). The symbolic message would seem to be that the
Christian vision for the perfection of humanity lies in a harmonious balance
between all elements within the cosmic order. The only recognizable Catholic
image relating to the transcendent order is a small cross atop a tiny church at
the upper left corner. The title of the pamphlet to which this picture relates
is, Faith Alive In The Americas – La Fe Vive En Las Americas." To
what faith do these phrases refer? Do they refer to such traditional Christian
topics as sacraments, sin, redemption, sanctifying grace and eternal life, or
do they refer to divine immanence in nature and the resolution of opposites?
The visual message of
this American Catholic pamphlet is, in fact, not dissimilar from the image
shown to the right painted by Dan Lomahaftewa titled Rainbow Myth. It
was featured on the Spring 1998 cover of Teaching Tolerance, a
publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. This painting, based on
the ancient petroglyphs of the Hopi tribes of New Mexico, depicts the perennial
quest for the fusion of opposites described throughout this essay. The artist
has portrayed a classic pre-post Christian cosmos, between the celestial
rainbow above and the infernal dragon below (emerging from the flames). Within
this enclosed environment one sees a horned male (stage right) and a feather
decked female (stage left). The male figure carries a shield with the male sun
symbol and is flanked by spermatoid serpents. The female caries the feminine
spiral symbol and is flanked by the same symbol of involution. The allusion is
to an all sacred generative principle. Between the two, above, is the circular
cosmic mandala, and below, their offspring, a harmonious union of man
and beast.
While harmony with nature and the environment is a noble endeavor within the natural order, is this the Gospel of Salvation preached by Jesus Christ and fomented by the Holy Catholic Church for two thousand years?
Now, as ever, we must pray earnestly that the bishops united to the Holy Father be reminded that they "have a battle to fight over the faith that was handed down, once and for all, to the saints (St. Jude 1:3
Once again, as in the
dream of St. John Bosco, the perennial Catholic dyadic symbolism of grace and
nature shows the way.
In his well known dream, the saint saw two pillars standing in the sea while the Bark of Peter was tossed violently in the troubled waters. The larger pillar was surmounted by the Holy Eucharist; God’s pouring out of Himself for our sanctification and salvation. The second smaller pillar held the Blessed Virgin Mary, the archetype of redeemed humanity, (the Church) and our loving mother raised up to meet Him. After terrifying battles and storms, the ship carrying the Roman Pontiff, along with other smaller ships representing other Christian churches and communities, moored at these pillars. A period of peace was then accorded the world. May I humbly suggest that, as the present Holy Father has reminded us, these two great Christian realities, the Eucharist and devotion to Mary, are the key to the future, both here and in the world to come.
Another cause, dear to His Holiness,
John Paul II, is the reunification of Eastern and Western Churches; "the
two lungs" of the one Universal Church. In this regard, the following
modern "icon" commemorating the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius
now celebrated on February 14 (Valentines Day) visually represents the reunion
of two Churches. It is of symbolic interest. These two brothers are credited
with the conversion of the southern Slavs, c. 863, to Byzantine Christianity
and are recognized by the Roman Church as the patron saints of Christian unity
as they had formal authorization for their missionary work from both the Roman
Pontiff and the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the icon St. Cryil stands at
stage right and is dressed in classic Western monastic garb. He has a white
cross on his head and a blue cross at the bottom of his scapular covering his
body. At the center of his scapular is the Patriarchal cross – a Latin cross
with a horizontal bar above (head – reason) and diagonal bar forming an X
(body – emotion and intuition) below. He holds another official
"Patriarchal" cross, symbolic of heavenly and earthly authority. With
his right hand he offers the Eastern blessing with his fingers arranged to form
the Greek name of the Redeemer, Χριστός (Christos). St. Methodius, an ordained Byzantine priest and later
Roman bishop, stands at stage left. He is dressed in the traditional robes of
the Orthodox priesthood with multiple crosses. In his right hand is seen the
chalice of salvation and his left hand is hidden to reflect the sense of mystery
at the core of Eastern theology. By following the universal "right –
left" symbolism discussed above, one may assume that Cryil represents the
(m.) authority figure embodied in the Apostolic See of Rome and Methodius the
receptive (f.) mystical element of Christianity. Wholeness in Christ contains
both. The reunion of the Churches, Rome with its law and philosophy, and
Byzantium with its mystic contemplation and liturgy could be based on this
mutual recognition in sacramental submission to Christ. At the Second Council
of Nicea in 787, the last council recognized by both Churches, the book
containing the Gospel was enthroned and all decrees were proclaimed in both
Latin and Greek. Could not the two come together once again, as in a nuptial,
to share in the Body and Blood of the Savior and swear fidelity to each other
in Him?
By way of final
recapitulation, I should like to restate the basic premise of this essay
dedicated to the understanding of universal symbols. Leaving aside the simple
atheists who deny the existence of anything but matter, there are two
fundamental belief systems adhered to by humanity. The first view is that there
is but one unified cosmos comprising all spirit and matter. This view is summed
up in the Neo-Platonic, Hermetic definition. "God is an infinite circle
whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere." Although
there are variations on the theme, religions that espouse this view generally
hold that all, both what are considered "good" or "evil,"
comes out from the "One" by emanation and will eventually return to
the "One." This system is symbolically represented by the circular mandala
with a bindu point at the center and is comprised of such groups as
Brahmanism and Hinduism in the East, and the various neo-platonic, gnostic ,
kabbalistic, and "new age" sects in the West. The focus of these
religions is, most basically, to affirm and develop ones own "divine"
potential as well as harmonize the divine imbalance of the cosmos.
The second view is that
the one transcendent God created the cosmos from nothing, ex nihilo, and
that God and the creation are separate realities. This view is summed up in the
Catholic definition from Vatican I, that, "God is other than the world in
being and essence, and above all else, that could possibly be considered to be,
ineffably superior." This group is comprised of all orthodox Jews, Moslems
and Christians. It finds its fulfillment in the Christian doctrine of the
"Incarnation" wherein man is invited to live by faith and sacrament
in Christ the unique mediator between the two realities. The focus of this
religious view is to, love, honor, and serve God in general, (Jews, Muslims,
and all Christians) and to be sacramentally incorporated into His mystical body
in particular ( esp. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.) The symbolic
representation of this incorporation may be represented as the letters, IHS with
the cross of Christ at the center. This
symbol, in fact, incorporates the "wholeness" desired by all humanity
in that it represents the coming together of heaven and earth in the person of
Jesus Christ..
In closing, I should like to present two archetypal icons that represent the two fundamental religious alternatives discussed in this treatise. The first icon is a traditional Catholic vision of nature elevated by grace portrayed in a 15th century Byzantine icon from the Peremyshl Museum in Ukraine. This symbolic picture conforms to the first part of this study. The second icon is a modern Kabalistic vision ( see the Hebrew letters in the four quadrants) presented at the Chicago International Art Exposition in 1989 which relates to the second. Both follow precisely the right-left, above below dialectic proposed at the beginning and developed throughout this study.