Titian, Noli me Tangere
In
an Eastertime review, the DT's Alastair Sooke admired Titian's
depiction of Christ ("Touch me not") meeting Mary Magdalene in the
Garden of Gethsemane. He admires,
that beautiful, verdant landscape, softly illuminated by the light of
dawn – and suffused, for believers at least, with sacred magic. Easter
Sunday commemorates Christ’s resurrection. But all of us – Christians
and non-Christians alike – find solace in rebirth. It’s, in part, what
makes us human – which Titian, surely, understood. Happy Easter.
It's
a slightly curious phrase, "find solace in rebirth.. what makes us
human." Does he mean the natural world, like the tree which, in the
picture connecting the gaze of Magdalene to that of Christ?
That got me thinking about how rustic religions are in general. The Buddha and his fig tree are well known. The lotus that grows in muddy water as an emblem of blossoming from the murk. The Hindu Kamadhenu or cow-goddess, which is "the source of all prosperity". A non-erotic fertility symbol that contains all the gods in her body.
That got me thinking about how rustic religions are in general. The Buddha and his fig tree are well known. The lotus that grows in muddy water as an emblem of blossoming from the murk. The Hindu Kamadhenu or cow-goddess, which is "the source of all prosperity". A non-erotic fertility symbol that contains all the gods in her body.
You'd
think this might not apply to Islam, and yet Kamadhenu iconography was
influenced by Buraq, the female-faced horse that carried the Prophet.
The Quran contains the story of a female camel who was born from a rock
as a miraculous proof to disbelievers of the Prophet Salih.
The
disbelievers then maltreat the camel, and are enjoined to, "Let her
feed from Allah's Earth" (11:64). There are six Surahs specifically on
animals. Surah 2 (cow); surah 6 (cattle); surah 16 (bees); surah 27
(ants); surah 29 (spiders); surah 107 (elephants). In general their
integrity and work-ethic are lauded as well as the social aspect of the
communal ones. The horse (surah 100) is cited as an example of fire and
fury to follow for the faithful.
So,
these creatures that feed or graze from Mother earth and are noble are
praised. The implication is that the Earth is praised - as distinct from
cosmopolitan cities. The deserts and their intrepid camels.
Religions
that find animals praiseworthy and useful are also temperamentally
rustic. Whether the image is of a garden or an oasis, the same idea of
growth, death, rebirth is apparent.
So,
therefore in order to have rebirth one must also have death, whether it
is Christ or of the vegetable order. So the very notion of rebirth
means disorder, a falling-off and disintegrating.
That
could easily be likened to the feminine dynamic of dancing on the
new-arisen earth that grows from the eternal cycle of destruction - Kali
or the red-brown ochre of Rudra-Shiva; or the effeminate eastern god
Dionysus.
Dance
and destruction and destiny are tied-together as surely as the fiery
sun hurtling across the sky is tied to Earthspin. A dance has destiny
whereas a straight-line does not. Reason being that the destructive
ingredient of the dance invites in new creation.
The
material world (of light or straight-lines) is an Airtight Garage that
actually approaches the immaterial (algorithm). This is the world we
enter when we open the door to the universe of straight lines.
One of the old gods of the maritime workers
I've nothing against artists and, actually, met my own illustrator Elena in this area. However art, historically, isn't a development, it's a spontaneous outgrowth of the society, as with Venice.
The
spontaneity has a type of naive charm. The Renaissance masters like
Titian have a naive grandeur that has never been equaled. Naivety being
just a tactile contact with Mother earth and the red loam of home.
This
contact is a contact with the dance of destruction and creation, the
fiery sun traveling across the sky. Earth and sky have a naive
simplicty. The simplciity is the simplicity of a dance that has power
and meaning in the cosmos.
A
straight line, for all its complex parallel reality, does not have that
and that is the universe we're in. The meaning of powerful, monumental
simplicity often has a religious tone, as was picked-up by Robert Yaple
in his essay on Stygia (Savage Sword #23).
Places like Khemi had a decadence, almost a decline,
"a grim massiveness.. that was overpowering and oppressive."
The
torpor of such ancient kingdoms reeks of decadence, and also a strange
writhing power. As Yaple notes, only Stygia survived the catastrophe
that engulfed Hyboria, eventually to become the kingdom of the Nile.
Yaple
asserts that the Stygians were "obsessed with stability", but it is
also characterized by a wild, rhythmic swaying of its serpentine
heritage (see Milius's Conan, the scene at Thulsa Doom's palace).
The
serpent, a bit like the Chinese dragon (Tao) belongs to the Earth and
manifests destruction and creation. It's not dormant, but it can appear
like the same cycle is repeating endlessly.
By
contrast, the straight-line world appears to advance, but is it
advancing towards self-destruction? Destruction of the psyche through
physical boredom manifested by acolytes of sorcerers of number.
As
Yaple says in the same essay, sorcerers like Thoth Amon weren't
government employees, they were out for self-gain, even enemies of the
state. Our position in modernity is exactly the opposite. Our psyches
are increasingly under peril from number and sex, since the two become
one in the expressive algorithm (prev.)