Nativity

Mati Klarwein's Nativity -1961

Recently on TV there was a programme on the Netherlands painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450- 1516) which gave specific attention to  his triptych altar-piece, 'The Garden of Delights'. The presenter explained convincingly that Bosch used Van Eyck's Ghent alter-piece 'The Adoration of the Lamb' as an inspirational benchmark to surpass in technical brilliance and imagination when painting 'The Garden of Delights'. The presenter argued that Bosch expanded the whole sphere of artistic dialogue on  the imagination and its contents with his triptych.

The more one studies the symbols  and motifs of the collective movement of Surrealist painters, the more one recognizes and identifies quite specific traits shared with medieval painters such as Bosch. Avian imagery for example frequently features in both Surrealist painters such as Max Ernst (1891- 1976) and the English born Leonora Carrington  (b. 1917 - 2011 ) as well as  in Bosch's paintings.The themes of transformation and metamorphosis  set in bizarre landscapes are also shared  with Bosch and often painted with a trompe l' oeile  brilliance by Surrealists, particularly Salvador Dali.

The paintings of Mati Klarwein (b. 1932 Hamburg, d. 2002 Majorca) seem to take the imaginative language of Dali one step further. Dali's artistic elitism held no interest in pop culture or psychedelia although in later life  he was fond  of associating with such movements often from financial incentive.

Mati Klarwein's paintings display a great interest in eastern spirituality, pop culture and the properties of the psychedelic ( from Gk. Psyche Soul/Mind, deloun to manifest). In his life-time Klarwein studied with the French painter Fernand Léger (1881- 1955) but it is the  visionary Austrian painter Ernst Fuchs b.1930 who's said to have the strongest influence upon his creativity. Klarwein visited Tibet, India, Bali, North Africa, Turkey, Europe and America before eventually settling in New York City during the early 1960's.

 Klarwein  shares with Salvador Dali (1904-89) a certain technical brilliance and exquisite attention to detail, along with a complete indifference  to the viewer's ability  to  easily comprehended his message. They both also seem to share a predilection for a large, sometimes disorientating perspective and landscape, a fondness for almost eye-watering, sharp and vivid tonal arrangements of colour, as well as an irrepressible urge to provoke and even shock the complacent viewer.

The most amazing aspect of Klarwein's 'Nativity'  is its early date, displaying many motifs and paraphernalia associated with pop culture and full-blown psychedelia when in fact it originates from the very cusp of that era, 1961;  Klarwein's 'Nativity' anticipates many of  the hall-marks and common-places associated with psychedelia and pop-art, notably in the artistic excesses of that most ubiquitous of art-formats during the 1960's and  early '70's, the rock music album-cover.

The word 'iconic' is frequently over-used and abused by many uninspired writers and media journalists these days but the figure of Jackie Onassis, depicted in  'Nativity' wearing sun-glasses upon a fan  is a deserving contender for the status  of  1960's iconic figure.

I confess to having lived with a large poster reproduction of  Klarwein's 'Nativity'  much to my visitors fascination and perplexity, during the  heady, heat-wave summers of  '76 and '77.

           A detail from the centre panel of Bosch's 'The Garden of Delights'.

Labor

The statuette named Labor  in the Layer monument has the most expressive portraiture of all four statuettes. With his care-worn features, gray hair and beard, engaged in digging, he is utterly Saturnine in character. One can only speculate upon the nationality of the craftsman, but I am inclined to think it's the work of a commissioned and travelling sculptor of the Northern Mannerist school, perhaps from a city based in close trading with Norwich, from Flanders or North Germany. It's only when  close-up that one gets a true sense of the expressiveness of this portrait. Compare how different his face  appears from a  lower view-point  in the photo below to this sharp angle close-up shot.

The Layer Quaternity

Almost hidden from view in the church of Saint John Maddermarket Norwich there's a highly theatrical and dramatic Monument - the Layer monument, a large slab of sculptured marble in polychrome is an early seventeenth century funerary momento mori. The symbolism of its fascinating, yet enigmatic quartet of statuettes  is  complex, but well worth analysis.

The strictly literal-mindedness of our age, combined with the Layer monument's relative obscurity has prevented  it from being identified as an art-work which  utilizes esoteric symbolism. The narrow belief that the Word, in this case the moral label which accompanies each statuette, is a fully-developed definition has effectively blinded viewers from actually looking closely at each statuette.

Each of the four statuettes of the Layer Monument corresponds to a specific archetypal figure. They are Pax 'the wise ruler' here depicted treading the weapons of war underfoot, Gloria,  'the Great Mother', frequently associated with lunar imagery, Labor, 'the old man' complete with grey hair and beard, and Vanitas, 'the child/trickster' figure, not only a cherub and psychopomp of the  recently deceased but also the messenger of alchemy, Mercurius,  who is often depicted standing upon a Rotundum in alchemical illustrations. 

The psychologist C.G. Jung who wrote at great length and depth upon alchemy and its symbols noted,

'the statue plays a mysterious role in ancient alchemy'. (CW14:559)  and that, 'The statue stands for the inert materiality of Adam, who still needs an animating soul; it is thus a symbol for one of the main preoccupations of alchemy . (CW 14 Para 569)

One is encouraged in interpreting the Layer Quaternio as a work which utilizes esoteric symbolism when reading C.G.Jung's observation-

Graybeard and boy belong together. The pair of them play a considerable role in alchemy as symbols of Mercurius. (CW 9 i:39)

Number, along with colour, is embedded deep in the human psyche as  primordial of  all symbols. The number four and its geometric arrangement in the form of four corners or points upon the figure X  was of especial significance to C.G.Jung . He  defined the  quaternio thus-

The quaternity is an organizing schema par excellence, something like the crossed threads in a telescope. It is a system of coordinates that is used almost instinctively for diving up the visible surface of the earth, the course of the year, or the collection of individuals into groups, the phases of the moon, the temperaments, elements, alchemical colours, and so on.  (CW 9ii. 381)

As if with the Layer Monument in view, Jung states of the quaternio -

We have then, two contrasting pairs, forming by mutual attraction a quaternio, the fourfold basis of wholeness. As the symbolism show, the pairs signify the same thing: a complexio oppositorum or uniting symbol  (CW Vol 9i: 245)

Reinforcing the Layer Monument's significance as an example of a complexio oppositorum that is, a complex of opposites, Jung once more as if  having the Layer monument quaternio in view remarks- 

 Like all archetypes, the self has a paradoxical, antinomial character. It is male and female, old man and child, powerful and helpless, large and small. The self is a true complexio oppositorum. (CW  9 i: 355)

Polarity and the union of opposites along  with its resultant synergy was an essential  tool of alchemical symbolism. There are numerous opposites within the Later Quaternio - Young/Old -Heaven/Earth -Male/Female, Time/Space and Pleasure/Suffering are discernable.

Just as the upper pair of Pax and Gloria  represent the eternal 'heavenly' realms, so to in contradistinction the figures of Labor and Vanitas represent the temporal dimension of time in earthly existence, thus  the essential co-ordinates of Time and Space may be attributed to the Quaternio. Jung explains this essential component  of the quaternity thus-

From the lapis, i.e. from alchemy, the line leads direct to the quaternio of alchemical states of aggregation, which, as we have seen, is ultimately based upon the space-time quaternio. The latter comes into the category of archetypal quaternities and proves to be an indispensable  principle  for organizing the sense-impressions from which the psyche receives from bodies in motion. Space and time form a psychological  a priori, an aspect of the archetypal quaternity which is altogether indispensable for acquiring knowledge of physical processes.  (CW Vol 9 ii: 40)

It can also be  discerned  that together the four statuettes of the Layer Monument  correspond to  a commonplace  template of antiquity, the four elements.  The crescent moon which Gloria stands upon is often associated with the element of Water.  Pax, a Christ-like figure who closely corresponds to Sol Invinctus  represents the element of Fire. It follows from the  activities which the lower case pair  Vanitas and Labor are engaged upon, namely blowing bubbles and digging earth,  that they symbolize the two elements of Air and Earth.

In essence  the four statuettes upon the two pilasters of the Layer Monument  represent  a highly original,  profound and intriguing religious symbol. They are none other than a quaternio or four-fold whole of archetypes which represents the Self. Plexiformed in their  relationship and ostensibly a product  of Christian  iconography, the Layer quaternio are in fact a syncretic fusion of both Christian and  esoteric symbolism, a rare and important  example of how  the  symbolism of Hermetic philosophy occasionally infiltrated and integrated with  Christian iconography.

An essay upon the symbolism of   the Layer Monument and the intellectual history of its era can be found here.

Postscript 23rd Oct: The lavish production  of Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth' set in Medieval England  now on Channel 4, states for  the synopsis of episode 2  - 'Jack's statue of the cathedral's saint has a shocking effect on the King'. One couldn't make up the timing if one tried!
 

Stag

19th century stag (damaged with only one antler)  a heraldic device found at floor level in the church of Saint John Maddermarket.

Gloria

Gloria, a detail from the Layer Monument, Saint John Maddermarket, Norwich.

Carl Jung makes an apt observation upon the symbolism of the moon in religious iconography.

According to the ancient view, the moon stands on the borderline between the eternal, ethereal things and the ephemeral phenomena of the earthly, sublunar realm. Macrobius says: 'The realm of the perishable begins with the moon and goes downward. Souls coming into this region begin to be subject to the numbering of days and to time... there is no doubt that the moon is the author and contriver of mortal bodies.' Because of her moist nature, the moon is also the cause of decay. The loveliness of the new moon, hymned by the poets and Church Fathers, veils her dark side, which however, could not remain hidden from the fact-finding of the empiricist. The moon, as the star nearest to the earth, partakes of the earth and its sufferings, and her analogy with the Church and the Virgin Mary as mediators has the same meaning. She partakes not only of the earth's sufferings but of its daemonic darkness as well.         

CW 14: 173