More Strong Wimmin

By Bev Stamp and Joye Gulley

In the December 1979 issue of What She Wants, we explored the Cleveland Museum of Art for our impression of Strong Wimmin. We looked at the African Art section, 20th Century Art, Impressionism and Post-impressionism, and 19th Century Art. This month we will look at 18th Century French Art, Salvatore Rosa's The Four Tondi of Witches Scenes (mid-17th century), and Art of the Migration Period (Celtic, 2nd to 3rd century.A.D.), as well as the fountain complex at the south entrance of the Museum. Lack of space prevents us from including in-depth studies of the painting and painter or sculptor. We hope that our short descriptions of the works of art will encourage readers to visit the Museum to see the wimmin for themselves.

To study adequately the varied roles of wimmin as portrayed in different art forms, it is necessary to understand some of the beliefs of early people in relation to nature and to the world around them.

Since earliest times, the sun has been considered a male symbol:

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose.'

The sky or heavens as well as daytime are also male symbols representing strength and vigor.

The moon and the night, however, belong to wimmin:

That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon.1

The earth too is considered female:

Long have I loved what 1 behold

The night that calms, the day that cheers; The common growth of mother earth Suffices me.'

And the concept of nature as womon is centuries old:

Let us permit nature to have her way: She understands her business better than we do." The well-known gardens in front of the Art Museum have an excellent example of the Womon/Earth: Man/Sun relationship. Within the circle of the astrological sign sculptures is a fountain. To the left (east) is a womon and to the right (west) is a man. The womon represents Nature, or more in-

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photo by Joye Gulley

clusively, the Earth. There are forest animals behind her and vine leaves and fruit in front of her. She kneels and calls the water to her. The man, or sun, in the west draws, the water into cloud form. Man and womon-Sun and Earth-are the main components of the water cycle. They represent the movements of the waters in nature.

Through the South entrance of the Museum and to Page 8/What She Wants/January, 1980

the left is Room 24, 18th Century French Art. We are greeted by two life-size baroque style wimmin bearing cornucopias. These wimmin represent Persephone, the Greek goddess of plenty. Besides abundance, they represent peace, justice and charity. Womon as Virtue is represented in the special exhibit "Sculptures from Notre Dame" which runs until January 27, 1980. These sculptures are part of what is considered one of the major archeological finds of this century. They were discovered in the spring of 1977 by workers digging under the pavement of a courtyard at the Hotel Moreau in Paris. They found a total of 364 "lost" sculptures which had once been part of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Commune during the French Revolution had ordered their destruction, and scholars thought they were lost forever. One sculpture, Head of a Woman, is gothic (c. 1245) and is believed to be one of the theological virtues from the north portal of the transept.

Near the two Persephones is Jean Marc Rattier's Madame de Pompadour as Diana. This is a baroque version of the Goddess Artemis. It is a poor likeness, but a propos to the 18th century art style. Unlike the classical sculpture of Artemis, Mme. de Pompadour is fully clothed and not very athletic looking. We include this painting for comparison purposes between the different art styles.

Ahead in Room 22 is a series of four paintings on a theme that is very relevant to any study of wimmin's past story-the wise wimmin, or witches, who met in covens called "wicca" or "Wicce". These wimmin could shape the unseen to their will. They were healers, teachers, poets and midwives.

Witchcraft-the Old Religion-is perhaps the oldest religion in the West. Its origins go back 35,000 years before Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. It is closer in spirit to Native American traditions or to the Shamanism of the Arctic. There is no dogma and no great book authored by a man. Witchcraft takes its teachings from Nature, its inspiration from the movements of the sun, moon, stars, flight of birds, slow growth of trees and cycles of the seasons.

The Mother Goddess was the birth-giver. The horned god was both the hunter and the hunted-he eternally passes through the gates of death, that new, life may go in. The double spiral or spiral dance is seen in the sky: the moon, which monthly dies and is reborn and the sun, whose waxing light brings summer's warmth and whose waning brings the chill of winter. Records of the moon's passing were scratched on bone and the Goddess was shown holding the bison horn, which is also the crescent

moon.

To mark cycles of time, stones were set in great circles and rows. The year became a great wheel divided into eight parts-the solstices and equinoxes and the cross-quarter days between when feasts were held and fires lit. With each ritual and each ray of sun or beam of the moon that struck the stones at the times of power, the force increased-there were reservoirs of energy within the circles. Priestesses probed the secrets of time and the hidden structure of the cosmos. Mathematics, astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and the understanding of the workings of the human mind developed side by side with the deeper cosmic mysteries.*

After 30,000 years (about 3,000 B.C.), warring gods invaded the Goddess people. Many were banished to the hills and were known as Picts, Faeries or pixies. In Greece, the Goddess "married" new gods and the Olympic Pantheon of 12 gods and goddesses was created. In the British Isles the victorious Celts adopted many features of the Old Religion and were known as Druids. The Faeries preserved the Old Religion. Clan Mothers, called the "Queen of Elpahme" (Elfland), led the covens. Colleges of the Druids and the poetic Colleges of Ireland and Wales preserved many of the old mysteries.

Persecution began slowly. The rise of Christianity

in the West sealed the doom of these wimmin, and some men, who worshipped the Mother Goddess of the Old Religion. The Patriarchs feared the witches' knowledge of plants and herbs and did not understand their night-time rituals. They persecuted them mostly because they denied Christ and continued to worship the Great Goddess. Over seven million wimmin were persecuted and killed from the 13th through the 18th Centuries.

Two decrees by the church in 1484 and 1486 were the legal means of persecution of the witches. The Papal Bull of Innocent VIII unleashed the power of the Inquisition against the Old Religion. In 1486, the Malleus Malleficarum, "The Hammer of the Witches", by the Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger laid the groundwork for a reign of terror that was to hold

براہ کے اگر

photo by Joye Gulley

all of Europe in its grip until well into the 18th Century.' One of its passages reflects the extreme misogyny of the 15th Century: "All witchcraft stems from carnal lust, which in wimmin is insatiable". (But are we really so much more enlightened today? We still let religious doctrines wield power over millions of wimmin. Just look at the fanatic antichoice movement!)

The Church could tolerate no rivals. Persecution lasted to the 18th Century when the "burning time" was halted. Today, in the East as well as the West, we are surrounded with male images of divinity characters. As in the older times, wimmin are taught to submit to male authority."

The Four Tondi of Witches Scenes (1,640-1649), by Salvatore Rosa, show four scenes: morning, day, evening and night. The paintings are round, reminding us that the witches' rituals take place in circles. They depict unfamiliar creatures to remind us that the various rituals witches were thought to perform and what they actually did are two different perspectives. The paintings also illustrate various ceremonial practices and symbols, including the casting of wax figures. The evening scene shows a pentagram. This is an old symbol recently written about in a December 1979 issue of the Cleveland Press.

Two Russian scientists studying Stonehenge, a 2800-year-old monument on the Salisbury Plain in western England, found that five of the stones in the circular complex corresponded to a pentagram. There was less than one percent error. The pentagram "seems to have been used as a basis for its (stonehenge) arrangement, and contains information about the size of the planets of the solar system. We can only wonder if perhaps there is some connection between Stonehenge-built during matriarchal times--and the Old Religion.

From Room 22 walk to the right into Room 23,

(continued on page 13)