Shakti 1998 oil, acrylic, ink and gold leaf on Masonite 28x34"
This work presents two separate images simultaneously, in layers. One layer is formed in a shallow relief, and one layer is painted. Although the images are two discreet elements, they are intended to be parallel metaphors, both pointing to ideas expressed in the border of the painting, written in Greek and also in Sanskrit.
The sources of both the image in relief as well as the painted image lie in the work of Gustave Courbet. I borrowed, pretty literally, from two of his paintings. The bas-relief comes from a well known work of Courbet’s called L’Origine du Monde. The source of the painted image comes from a pair of paintings called La Source de la Loue. It was at the headwaters of the river Loue that Courbet painted several works around 1864.
L’Origine du Monde is now on permanent loan to the Musee D’Orsay. It had disappeared for years, but the widow of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan made it available to the museum. Although the painting may not create as much of a shock today as it did a century ago, it has been consistently regarded since its creation as blatant pornography. The art historian, Linda Nochlin, writing from both a feminist and a Freudian perspective, has discussed L’Origine du Monde at great length. She is regarded as an expert and authority on the work of Courbet, and, beyond a critical-pathological analysis of the painting, she finds little redeeming value in the work (except for its masterful execution). While I don’t intend to debate Professor Nochlin concerning what may be the way the painting has heretofore been regarded, I would like to pose the question,"Why is the painting called The Origin of the World?" Why didn’t Courbet call it Jacqueline’s Twat, or something similar? I know that Courbet was a world-class provocateur. Even so, I believe that Monsieur Courbet was onto something that is not fully comprehended if it is dismissed out of hand as a simple, prurient male fantasy. I believe Courbet was connecting the idea of desire with creation itself, not just in the sense of a kind of mindless human lust, but in a more universal way, implying the same thing that Marcel Duchamp, who was well aware of Courbet, played with all his life…Eros c’est la vie. The whole universe is driven by desire! If one looks carefully at certain Buddhist paintings, say for instance, any rendition of the Wheel of Time, one can see, at the center of the wheel, three animals in a circle: a cock, a pig, and a snake. These represent respectively, lust, greed, and anger. They are, for the Buddhists, the psychic forces that keep the wheel turning. Without saying that Courbet was in any way a Buddhist, I would simply like to suggest that he was aware in his own way of the power of eros, not just in his own personal experience, but in a larger, universal sense. To the ancients, Eros was a god, a force to be reckoned with and honored. Historically, however, Courbet’s treatment of the female body in this painting has been regarded by all, friend and foe alike, as a kind of insult to women, because the figure has not only no arms or legs, but also no face. It is therefore considered as a device that creates an object out of a human being, a woman. But what if Courbet intended to make the work impersonal in order to make it universal? By leaving out a face, the primary reference to the personal, he placed it in the realm of the impersonal, the universal.
Whether or not I can ever discern Courbet’s intentions regarding this painting, I can say with certainty what my own intentions are. I decided to combine this image of the female genitalia with a painting of a cavernous source of a river because, for me, the metaphorical parallels were too obvious to ignore, and there are too many precedents in art, from the Paleolithic period to the relatively recent, if one simply looks for them.
It has been previously noted in Courbet’s work that, in a Freudian sense, one might analogize the image of female genitals and paintings of caves. It is my opinion, however, that the analogy is not a matter of pathology, but, quite the opposite, simply another example of an ancient notion that the earth itself is female. We not only come out of the earth, but we also return to the earth upon our death. Again, I don’t necessarily suggest that Courbet was making a conscious connection between these images…but I am deliberately taking two of his works and synthesizing a third work as my own. And I am also attempting a sort of tantric transformation of something, previously regarded as profane, back into something sacred.
Just briefly noting some thematic precedents, one might ask, "What was it that prehistoric people were doing in caves where, often, painted images are found? It has been suggested that, as a matter of initiation into adulthood, young people (probably male, although we don’t know) were led deep down into the total darkness of caves and made to find their way out. This was a way of forcing people to face their fears and perhaps also a way of acknowledging a literal "rebirth" from the womb of the earth.
There are countless examples of stone yoni sculptures, found everywhere from Europe to central and south Asia. Often, previous modern European interpreters have read them as obscenities, but here, as is sometimes the case with Freudian theory itself, the pathology lies not with the object, but with the value system of the subject.
Finally, as a way of both graphically and conceptually punctuating my painting, I have chosen to surround the image with text. The Greek is from Plotinus. Some of his ideas to me are both poetic and astonishing. He had an intuitive, mystical grasp of the nature of things, and I see a close affinity between his thought and many ideas found in India. The last two phrases around the painting, in Sanskrit, are from the Upanishads. I do not consider it necessary that anyone be able to read these languages in order to look at my painting. Actually, part of the reason that I included the ideas in their original languages is to suggest that many of us now have not only forgotten these languages, but we have also lost many of the ideas that these languages once expressed.
Sources and References
Gustave Courbet L'Origine du Monde
Gustave Courbet La Source de la Loue
Translations of Greek and Sanskrit Texts
“For think of a spring which has no other origin, but gives the whole of itself to rivers, and is not used up by the rivers but remains itself at rest, but the rivers that rise from it, before each of them flows in a different direction, remain for a while all together, though each of them knows, in a way, the direction in which it is going to let its stream flow;”
…Plotinus: Ennead III. 8. On Nature and Contemplation
“The goddess of energy, Aditi,
Born of the godhead through vitality,
Mother of all the cosmic forces
Who stands in the heart of every creature,
Is the Self indeed. For this Self is supreme!”
…Katha Upanishad II. 1.7.
“Om. That is Full, this is Full, from that Full, this Full emanates. Taking away this Full from that Full, the Full still remains behind, Om. Peace, Peace, Peace.”
…Isa Upanishad, introductory chant.
