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Northstar Gallery |
SIRENS
The History of Mermaids and Sirens
Symbols of Transformation
Mermaids by Arthur Rackham 33
In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1
SIRENS, MERMAIDS & OTHER GODDESSES Mermaids have been enduring symbols in myth and culture for thousands of years. Mermaids continue to have a very visible role in contemporary society in advertising, movies and our culture in general. Each year The Coney Island Mermaid Parade occurs the first Saturday after the summer solstice around the third week of June, hundreds of mermaids, Neptunes, mer-men and hundred of thousands of spectators descend upon Coney Island, New York to celebrate the beginning of Summer and the official opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Coney Island Mermaids ®Northstar Gallery What is this powerful attraction to Mermaids that is so compelling? Why do five hundred thousand of people turn out for the Mermaid Parade? Why do mermaids retain such a visible role in our contemporary culture? Why is The Little Mermaid such a popular children's' movie? To answer these questions one must look at the historical myths and legends that tell the stories of mermaids, Sirens and other goddesses. Doris Day
The
day before, when the Admiral was going to the Rio del Oro, he said he saw three
mermaids who came quite high out of the water but were not as pretty as they are
depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men. He said that he saw some
in Guinea on the coast of Manegueta.
Beatrice Phillpotts, in her book Mermaids suggests that: Supremely beautiful, forever combing her hair, just beyond reach of men, mermaids have beckoned the adventurous to the unknown and the promise of forbidden fruits. However behind this seductive image of the Siren lurks the a metaphor of death, for enticed by her promise and allure, generations have been lured to their certain doom in a thousand different stories that form the bases of powerful and enduring myths and legends that continue today.48 The mermaid is found in all Western countries; she is the German Meriminni or Meerfrau, the Icelandic Marmenill, the Danish Maremind, the Irish Merow and many others, and there are echoes of her story from the East as well. The Matsyanaris, figures sometimes found sculptured in Indian temples, are nymphs with fishes’ tails, and superstitious Chinese sailors firmly believe in the existence of similar creatures in the China sea. 63 The Sirens of
today, including the mermaid that calls to us from almost every urban
corner, In Greek mythology, sirens are sea nymphs who possess the bodies of birds and the heads of women, and are the daughters of the sea god Phorcys. Sirens had such sweet voices that it is said that mariners who heard their songs were lured into grounding their boats on the rocks on which the beautiful nymphs sang. The Greek hero Ulysses was able to pass their island in safety because, following the advice of the sorceress Circe, he plugged the ears of his companions with wax and had himself firmly bound to the mast of the ship so that he could hear the songs without danger. According to another legend, the Argonauts escaped the Sirens because Orpheus, who was on board their ship, the Argo, sang so sweetly that he drowned out the song of the nymphs. According to later legends, the Sirens, upset at the escape of Odysseus or at the victory of Orpheus, threw themselves into the sea and perished. 30 A Mermaid - John William Waterhouse 1900 The earliest sirens were often depicted as looming over warriors marching to war or sailors at sea. Later Sirens began to appear on funerary stelae, often shown tearing their flowing tresses and beating their breasts with gestures of distress and mourning offering comfort to afflicted souls. The Siren below was found on the top of a large funerary monument on the Island of Manara. It is now located in the Louvre. 33 Siren on funerary monument Island of Manara, Louvre 33 In myth and folklore, mermaids are supernatural, sea-dwelling creatures with the head and upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a fish. The mermaid is frequently described as appearing above the surface of the water and combing her long hair with one hand while holding a mirror in the other. Mermaids, in the numerous tales told of them, often foretell the future, sometimes under compulsion; give supernatural powers to human beings; or fall in love with human beings and entice their mortal lovers to follow them beneath the sea. Similarities frequently exists between the stories concerning mermaids and those told about the Sirens. 30 The Sirens of Homer's Odyssey are often depicted as mermaids in contemporary art. Coney Island Mermaids ®Northstar Gallery
THE ODYSSEY One of the first references to a humans encountering Sirens is found in Homer's ancient epic, the Odyssey, written around 800 B.C. Ulysses is hardened to the many apparitions he had encountered on his travels and was very skilled at circumventing dangers and outwitting his adversaries. Ulysses was guided by Circe a sorceress who know the secrets of the seas and guided him in his great adventure. Circe gave Ulysses the following instructions about the Sirens: "So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you- heaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster. "Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, 'My friends, it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but
she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.' "I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favorable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. The Sirens Leon Belly Musee De L'Hotel Sandelin Sanit-Omer, Frnace Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing. "'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world.' "They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound me. "Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship stayed where it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore, and exhorted them man by man not to lose heart. "'My friends,' said I, 'this is not the first time that we have been in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders; attend to them, for the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from these steaming rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over yonder before you know where you are, and you will be the death of us.' "The North American Indians tell a story of how they once lived in a land far away to the west, a barren coast land where they were hungry and cold and did not know how to find food. Then a man appeared from the sea, rising every day out of the waters and coming quite close to shore, though he never actually touched the land. I He was a strange figure, like a man from the waist up but with two fish tails instead of legs and a face that might have been human yet was oddly like that of a porpoise. His long hair and beard were green. He would float on the surface of a the water, his fish tails clearly visible, and sing to the people. He told them how beautiful was the land whence he had come, the land of the sea. He told them of the treasures that lay under the waves, and of the strange fish people, and of the lovely green light that shone in the deeper waters, and the people, knowing that those who disappeared under the water never returned to earth, were frightened. But then he told them that across the waters lay another land to which a he could guide them, a land where they could live and find food. The Indians hesitated. But eventually, since they were nearly starving in their own land, they decided to trust the -words of the fish-man. They built boats, gathered up their families and their few possessions, and followed in the wake of this strange green-haired creature who called to them. He led them east, straight across the sea to the land of which he had told them, and there they landed safely and there they founded a new tribe; it was thus that the Indians came from Asia to North America. The fish-man, or fish-god, as he may have been, then disappeared, still singing, and was never seen again." 62 "According to the East Indians the god Vishnu took the form of a fish to save Manu from the great flood. Manu, a sage and—like his counterpart Noah—a virtuous man, one day found a tiny fish in the water with which he was performing his morning ablutions. He was about to throw it back into the river by which he stood when the fish spoke to him, begging him not to leave it in the water until it had grown bigger, because it was afraid of the great creatures of the sea. Manu accordingly placed the little fish in a bowl, but by morning it had grown so that the bowl was too small, and soon even the largest cauldron would not hold it. He took it to a lake nearby, but even that was too small, and it was with difficulty that he at last managed to get the now gigantic fish down to the sea. There it spoke to him again. "In seven days’ time," the fish said, "there will be a great flood. I will send a ship for you and for the seven sages, and you must take with you in this ship two of every creature that lives on earth or in the air, and you must take the seeds of every plant. Manu made ready as he was told, and in seven days the sea rose out of its bed and flowed over the earth. At the same time a great ship appeared and Manu and all his menagerie embarked, guided by Vishnu in his fish shape. This same fish, huge and with golden scales, then fastened the ship to his single horn and towed it up to the peak of the great mountains in the north. From thence, as the waters subsided, Manu was able to guide his vessel gradually down the slope of the mountain and back to the lands he knew, the mountain having ever since borne the name "The Descent of Manu." 62
SIRENS AS SYMBOLS Sirens are a universal symbol with a multitude of traditions, myths and meanings. Sirens are hybrid creatures, half animal half woman with strong feminine identities. The two beings coexist in the same body with the prerogative of accessing the qualities of both ever being transformed, perpetually provocative and disturbing. In her book The Mermaid and the Minotaur, Dorothy Dinnerstein observes: "Myth-images of half-human beast like the mermaid and the Minotaur express an old, fundamental, very slowly clarifying communal insight: that our species' nature is internally inconsistent, that our continuities with, and our differences from, the earth's other animals are mysterious and profound; and in these continuities, and these differences, lie both a sense of strangeness on earth and the possible key to a way of feeling at home here. Freud's concept of symbol expresses the notion that conflicts are explored in metaphors in the unconscious where censorship disguises enigma. Hybridization, ambivalence, polarity, duplicity and dualism are the qualities created by fear and the unresolved. Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) suggests that supernatural forces springs from the fusion of two biologically different entities, opposites that embrace and explain practically everything. Jung believed symbols materialize on their own account in our dreams, the expression of which is beyond the dimensions of time and space and in the sphere of unspecified and unlimited. These symbols therefore possess a numinous character and impress themselves on the general consciousness, disturbing for those minds used to operation within the limits of logic and rationality. Nevertheless, we can suppose that primordial images, sediments of accumulated memory, collective input, have a life of their own, independent of single individuals. As children we dreamed of monsters; what matters is that they approach, threaten and we are astonished, terrified, bewitched, petrified; and we either flee or overcome them. Often the dream repeats again and again seeking integration and resolution. Jung also observed: "A symbol always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. Symbols, moreover, are natural and spontaneous products. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or brush in hand and invented a symbol. No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by deliberate intent, and than give it "symbolic form". There are many symbols, however, that are not individual but collective in their nature and origin. These are chiefly religious images. The believer assumes that they are of divine origin - that they have been revealed to man. The skeptic says flatly that they have been invented. Both are wrong. It is true, as the skeptic notes, that religious symbols and concepts have for centuries been the object of careful and quite conscious elaboration. It is equally true, as the believer implies, that their origin is so far buried in the mystery of the past that they seem to have no human source. But they are in fact "collective representations," emanating from primeval dreams and creative fantasies. As such, these images are involuntary spontaneous manifestations and by no means intentional inventions." 15 The sensual images under consideration embody profound symbolic content from our "collective unconscious" and may be some of the most significant and enduring symbolic manifestations of the human experience. MERMAIDS AND RELIGION
Seduction of the Faithful: Noah looks on anxiously as fellow passengers on the Ark ogle nearby mermaids. A woodcut from the Biblia Sacra Germanica, kown as the Nurenberg Bible, 1483 Phillpotts in Mermaids
states: "Faced with the mass of accumulated stories and reported
sightings relating to a patent sinner who nonetheless clearly commanded a
large popular Symbols of Vice, the voluptuous harlot-mermaids as represented by the medieval Church personified the lure of base, unnatural desires which stood between a man and his chance of salvation. 50 As a vivid reminder of banned pleasures, the mermaid enjoyed a revival in the Middle Ages. Mermaid carving began to appear increasingly in church decoration and mermaid illustrations formed a popular feature of the bestiary books that came into vogue between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, in which fantastic descriptions of real and imaginary creatures were used to illustrate points of Christian dogma. As fatal charmer, the mermaid continued the siren tradition but in fish rather than bird form. The snaky sinuosities of her tail made the mermaid form a particular favorite in Church carvings which could also neatly and decoratively point a moral lesson, and soon an army of shapely sirens carved on the capitals of the pillars and pew ends gazed at the assembled faithful. 50 Confronted by a fleet of predatory mermaids brandishing their fearsome fish trophies, symbols of the abducted Christian soul, the medieval churchgoer was urged to reflect on the righteousness of his own life-style. Some church authorities, feared for the spiritual benefit of such possible musings. St Bernard of Clairvaux expressed his own anxiety for the spiritual welfare of his monks surrounded by such salacious beauties: 50
The ultimate role of Siren as seductress was created by Michelangelo in the central image of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where in "The Fall of Man and the Expulsion From Paradise" a mermaid like creature with a female body from the waits up and a snake or fish body from the waist down is shown seducing Adam and Eve. The classic story of Odysseus and the Sirens served as a powerful moral allegory of the manifold temptations of the flesh. ‘Let not a woman with a flowing train cheat you of your senses’, thundered Clement of Alexandria in his Exhortation to the Heathen, ‘sail past the song; it works death; exert your will, and you have overcome ruin; bound to the wood of the Cross, you shall be freed from destruction. The Word of God will be your pilot, and the Holy Spirit will bring you to anchor in the haven of Heaven. 52 Nick Berryman states that the church of
Saint Senara in Zennor on
the Atlantic coast of Cornwall near the town of Saint Ives sits on high, rocky cliffs, and stands on the site of
"A creeping disillusion with the Church stimulated by the inexorable progress of analytical science and Darwin’s disturbing evolutionary theories was evident in changed interpretations of the mermaid, now more frequently represented as the victim of society. The traditional mer-quest for a soul proved a popular literary inspiration as an allegory of society’s shortcomings. Matthew Arnold’s poem, The Forsaken Merman (1849), derived much of its poignancy from its attack on the heartlessness of organized Christianity. Margaret, the village maiden who is married to a merman abandons her mer-family to return to land and regain her soul; her unhappy mer-husband follows to plead with her but is cruelly spurned:" 53 But ah! She gave me never a look For her eyes were seal’d to the holy book. Oscar Wilde employed the mermaid myth as an allegory of the supremacy of ‘heart’ over ‘soul’. His, The Fisherman and his Soul (1891), tells the story of a young man who loses his soul in order to win his mermaid. Each year the separated soul returns siren-like, to tempt its master back. On the third attempt it wins and both are reunited, but having lived without a heart the soul has become evil and the fisherman not only gains a worthless soul but loses his love. Hans Christian Andersen’s Little
Mermaid (1873), commemorated in Edvard Eriksen’s famous "The yearning for lost pagan worlds expressed in much nineteenth century creative literature, also manifested itself in the art of the period and a new mermaid vogue. Here too interpretations had changed; the symbolic figure of the mermaid as Vice, familiar from Medieval art, exerted a more complex attraction in an age of declining Christian belief. The symbolism of the Classical dream which had inspired the formal allegories of Renaissance art, fascinated nineteenth-century artists in a more personal, frequently mystical sense, and the epic Renaissance scale was increasingly narrowed in favor of the intimate drama of private tragedy. As submarine femme fatale, the mermaid was the perfect symbol of the attractions of doomed passion, a favorite theme frequently indulged with a masochistic thrill, as in Burne-Jones’ painting, The Depths of the Sea (1887), which endowed its grisly subject with a haunting beauty." 53
To understand the significance and origin of Sirens and mermaids as symbols and the compelling themes they address, it is necessary to visit the role of the human form in classic myth. The female form is of course frequently found adorning public buildings, squares, cathedrals, museums and parks around the world. In Western tradition, the ability to master the female figure is often the mark that defines fine artistic talent. Clark observes: "We remember that the nude is after all, the most serious of all subjects in art..." 9 Auguste Rodin observed "The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that". Similarly Walt Whitman offered: "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. It is understandable that Sirens must embody these themes in the important role they play in myth.
DYING TO SELF
LILITH Lilith is one of the most prevalent identities in human culture. She dates back as far as 2000 years B.C. as depicted in the Sumerian bas-relief below. In other depictions Lilith is represented as a beautiful woman from the waste up and as a snake from the waste down. Lilith, aside from a stray reference comparing her to a "screechowl", does not appear in the Bible. It is in Rabbinic Midrash that the full account of Lilith is reported. The rabbis began with the Biblical reference to man's first creation as a bisexual being--"male and female". Some of the rabbis found in this image something similar to what Aristophanes proposed in the Symposium: a dual bodied being later divided into two who must thereafter seek each other out. But others tried to take into account the later creation of Eve. If woman was created from Adam, after his initial creation, than what happened to the female created at first? The answer, according to the Midrash, was that she was Lilith; created with Adam. 36 Lilith as Adam's first wife (2000-1800BC) Lilith typically symbolizes rebellion, rage and an untamed sexual nature. Her origins are ancient; she is sometimes known as the 'Hand of Inanna', who encouraged men to come and worship at the goddess's temple. She is also, variously, a Sumerian demon, a seductive succuba, the bride of Satan and Adam's clandestine lover or first wife. Lilith is always, significantly, homeless, and wanders about between the domains of Heaven and Earth. The Alphabet of Ben Sira, in the 11th century Kabbalistic work, suggests that Adam and Lilith were once an androgynous being with equal rights and substance. But this ideal state did not last: Adam and Lilith never found peace together. She refused to comply with Adam's demand that she submit herself to him, and in the end fled from him, basing her claim for equality on the fact that each had been created from earth. When Lilith saw that Adam would overpower her, she uttered the ineffable name of God and flew up into the air of the world. Adam then complained to God about his loneliness, and the creation of Eve followed, together with the "Fall" and the Expulsion from Eden. Adam, blaming this on Eve, separated from her, and for a time reunited with Lilith, before finally returning to Eve. Eventually, Lilith came to dwell in a cave on the shores of the Red Sea. There she engaged in unbridled promiscuity, consorted with lascivious demons, and gave birth to hundreds of Lilim, or demonic babies, daily. The images below are from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris depicting Lilith as the serpent tempting Adam and Eve. The imagery reflects the duality represented in Sirens with a hybrid female and snake identity. The image to the right shows the entire statue with the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. This sculpture is on the West facade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve Notre Dame Cathedral 32
Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve "The Fall of Man and the Expulsion From Paradise" Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel Vatican
BARBIE® & LILITH
In her book "Forever Barbie", M. G. Lord finds many fascinating parallels between the development of "Barbie", and the evolution of our culture. She explores Barbie ® as if the doll embodies the collective unconscious of America. Any symbol that is so visible and so prevalent in a culture has an powerful impact on both the conscious and unconscious life of the members of that culture. When a symbol becomes so commonplace, it merges into the culture and actually becomes less visible but not less influential. Does Barbie® iconology define the culture or is she merely a reflection of us with her imagery merely affirming the cultural trends and values of the time.
Barbie® as Coney Island Mermaid ®Northstar Gallery
I am a creature
of the Fey
Mermaid Barbie® Barbie® offers important insight into our society and about our selves. In Western civilization there is no other icon that is more prevalent or more widely distributed. With the number of Barbies® exceeding the 1,000,000,000 level, she serves as a defining image of femininity. "Barbie's" power as an image is enhanced by its pervasive presence during the early formative years of childhood. It is thought that every girl in America will own an average of seven Barbies® during her childhood. In this role Barbie® defines both the roles of women and men and is affirmed both consciously and unconsciously by her commercial importance and the hundreds of millions of dollars that are earned through her image annually.
As a role model Barbie® like Lilli and Lilith lived a life absent of marriage, children and family. She defines a life style celebrating self, eternal youth, perfect beauty and indulgent materialism. Her men are weak and marginalized while she sets an expectation of female perfection, strength, enduring youth and eternal beauty. In Barbie's® universe like that of Lilith, women are not the second sex for "Barbie" came before Ken. Lord continues; "The idea of woman as temptress, or as woman subordinate to man is absent from "Barbie" cosmology. Kenny is an accessory to the perfect woman who lives in a paradise of consumer goods. She has never been exiled from the garden for she has not experienced the fall. Barbie® is both toy and mythic object a modern woman... an incarnation of "The One Goddess with a Thousand Names" (Lilith?) In the reservoir of communal memory, what psychiatrist Carl Jung has termed the collective unconscious. Barbie® is an archetype which is ancient, matriarchal and profound." 42
Barbie® as Coney Island Mermaid ®Northstar Gallery
It is interesting to note that in her book
"Forever Barbie", M. G. Lord observes "There is remarkable amount of pagan
symbolism surrounding Barbie®. Even the original location of
corporate headquarters - Hawthorne, has significance. The Hawthorn, or May Tree,
represents
Below is an image of an automobile hood ornament from the 1920s. The winged Goddess encompasses many of the Lilith qualities as does the bomber nose art of the 1940s Automobile Mascot Automobile
Figural Mascots 28
Lilith Bomber Nose Art
GODDESSES IN THE CEMETERY When one first observes the very sensuous
images in the great cemeteries in Paris, Milan, Rome and Moscow you are
compelled to ask what is this about? What do these beautiful figures have to do
with death and mortality? The image to the right is from Pere Lachaise Cemetery
in Paris. Pere Lachaise was privately
developed and served as an alternative to the church cemetery for For the female figure to be accepted in public places the higher
moral purpose of the work had to be convincing and beyond reproach. Cemeteries are sacred
places, so work that might have been unacceptable in other settings were cast in a
transcendent ambiance. A
Death and Maiden theme emerged from a
long mythological tradition. In Greek mythology
Angelo, Monumental Cemetery, Milan ®Northstar Gallery
THANATOS AND EROS Within the Death and the Maiden Theme, a dark bound between sexuality and death is explored. In this iconography, the young girl is not involved in “the dance of death” but enters into a sensual relationship with death, which becomes increasingly erotic as time passes. Despite the sensuality of this genre, it maintained a moralistic goal for it is intended to remind us that life is short as is the exquisite beauty of a woman. The theme of Death and the maiden also serves as a moralistic pretext to depict female nudity. 24
In Sandro Botticellies, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485-86. Venus was conceived when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, the god Uranus, and the severed genitals fell into the sea and fertilized it. Venus is then born and is transported from the sea by a giant gilded scallop shell to the shores of Paphos in Cyprus. Sister Wendy in The Story of Painting states 'The lovely face of Venus shows a hauntingly intangible sadness as she is wafted to our dark shores by the winds, and the garment, rich though it is, waits ready to cover up her sweet and naked body. We cannot look upon love unclothed, says the Birth of Venus, we are too weak, too polluted, to bear the beauty." The Birth of Venus suggests an innocence and purity inherent in perfect beauty that is shared with all Sirens. Sirens and Venus also share a common origin, being born of the sea while Venus unlike her sisters completes her transmutation, and leaves the sea to live among men.
Imagery expressing the female form brings together powerful forces of death and sensuality, the eternal link between Thanatos and Eros. This expression reached a high level during the romantic era of the early nineteenth century. In Romantic art, death became a metaphor not of loss, fear and horror but of love and desire. William Wordsworth explores this theme in his poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known. The sensuous female forms of these monuments make this association explicit. In romantic love the object of a man's affection is more greatly valued the more unattainable she is. This is the origin of placing a woman on a pedestal keeping her as an ideal worthy of pure love. The Siren manifests the ideal form of unavailability; she is beautiful, cannot serve as her lovers consort and resides in an unreachable realm. fin-de-siecle engraving click on image to enlarge For the Romantics, death was an important theme. For them death was
experienced as exquisite emotion and the ultimate expression of love. "To die loving
you is better than life itself," wrote Alferd de Musset. The Romantic era was a
period of "beautiful death" in which death was perceived as a refuge, a
release,
a reward and a rebirth. Death was associated with rebirth, conception, birth and sexual
The moment of ecstasy corresponds to the self-annihilation spoken of by the mystics of the seventeenth century. Pierre de Berulle starts from the stage of "spiritual death" which the soul has to pass through during the "time of trials" in order to attain the "mystical marriage" with the Bridegroom. It is the Bridegroom who permeates the soul in the "abyss of greatness" and the "gulf of glory" in order to consummate the "spiritual marriage" Benoit de Canfield has written "the Bride of God (man's soul) "desires with all other creatures to be melted, liquefied, consumed, and annihilated." 16 In Bernini's Ludovica Albetoni, the believer is introduced into the Blessed Lady's bedroom and made a witness to her convulsions on the disordered bed. It is not merely a statue, but more like a living, gesticulating actress. In these examples, we see the sculptor's intent to create in the observer a mood of mysticism and ecstasy. 16 The sculpture thus becomes a mirror and indicator of the state of mind of the observer opening the way to salvation. 17 Cemeteries are places of infinite optimism where life everlasting
takes precedence over death, loss and
mortality. The focus is turned from the temporal past to: salvation, rebirth and
everlasting life.
Ever
since man first set to sea, sailors have tried to ensure safe passage
by attempting to pacify
MERMAIDS AS CLASSIC AUTOMOBILE HOOD ORNAMENTS In
the 1920's and 1930's, people experienced a new love affair with the automobile. During this heady period, cars proudly
Below are several examples of hood ornaments with a mermaid theme. Like the Sirens that called Ulysses to let go of the mast and surrender to their siren call, these figures also beckoned their mariner to let go and be transformed.
René Lalique Car Mascots Gallery Hood Ornament 34
René Lalique Car Mascots Gallery Mermaid Hood Ornament, 34
Siren "Dangerously fascinating woman' by G. Colin, French bronze mascot c.1910, 35
Automobile Mermaid Mascot Automobile
Figural Mascots 28 1931 Cadillac Hood Ornament Northstar Gallery
MERMAIDS AND GODDESSES AS BOMBER NOSE ART
THE LITTLE MERMAID
Coney Island Mermaids Northstar Gallery Joseph Campbell states "Myths of the Great Goddess" teach
compassion for all living beings. There you come to appreciate the real sanctity of the
earth itself, because it is
Where fresh water runs there runs spirit...for it comes from the realm of the earth goddess and bears her gifts. 37
THE SPIRIT OF WATER Wells, springs, rivers and lakes were sacred places in many cultures. Sacred waters are traditionally haunted by a host of female; spirits, white ladies, mermaids, fairies or Naiades suggesting the submerged memory of a goddess. The water habitat symbolizes the fluid nature of female sexuality, and its ancient connections with water. 38 In many of the mermaid and Siren myth the protagonist "dissolves" into the water. We were born of the water and lived in its realm for hundreds of millions of years. Our extended transmutation from reptilian form to human form is reflected in the metaphor of the mermaid. This metaphor resonates because it connects us to our watery roots and reminds us that the story is not yet done. Coney Island Mermaids ®Northstar Gallery The passage from conception to birth takes place in the maternal womb, the eternal earth, the grain of wheat which Persepone represents. Bachelard states; " In point of fact, the leap into the sea, more than any other physical event, awakens echoes of a dangerous and hostile initiation. It is the only, exact, reasonable image, the only image that can be experienced of a leap into the unknown. It is in the sea, the womb, and the grave all places of birth, rebirth and regeneration where the enigma of transformation is concealed. The danger and seduction of the sea becomes a metaphor for the womb, the grave, and the dangers of the feminine realm. 44 I am a creature of the
Fey Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) proposed: "In the deeps of the sea it is night: woman is the Mare tenebrarum, dreaded by navigators of old; it is night in the entrails of the earth. Man is frightened of his night, .... which threatens to swallow him up. He aspires to the sky, to the light, to the sunny summits, to the pure and crystalline frigidity of the blue sky; and under his feet there is a moist, warm, and dark gulf ready to draw him down; in many a legend do we see the hero lost forever as he falls back into the maternal shadow,- cave, abyss, hell." Joseph Campbell states: " Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The Labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world."
NAIADES The Naiades are nymphs who reside in bodies of fresh water. There are three main classes of water nymphs - the first being the Nereides who are from the Mediterranean Sea and the second were the Oceanides or nymphs of the oceans, while the Naiades, the third group lived in rivers, streams, brooks, springs, fountains, lakes, ponds, wells, and marshes. Naiades were also subdivided into several sub classes: Crinaeae who lived in fountains, Pegaeae who dwelled in springs, Eleionomae who were inhabitants of marshes, Potameides residents of rivers, and Limnades who lived in lakes.
Naiades were deeply connected to the body of water in which they lived. It was often thought that the waters over which Naiades presided possessed spiritual, healing, or prophetic powers. Thus the Naiades were frequently worshipped by the ancient Greeks in association with divinities who were also known for healing, fertility and growth. 34
"The genealogy of the Naiades was determined by geographic region and literary source. Naiades were either daughters of Zeus, daughters of various river gods, or simply part of the vast family of the Titan Oceanus." 34 Like all the nymphs, the Naiades were female symbols of the ancient world and played the part of both the seduced and the seducer. Zeus in particular seems to have enjoyed the favors of countless Naiades and other gods do not seem to have lagged far behind. The Naiades frequently fell in love with and actively pursued mortals as well. Classical literature abounds with the stories of their love affairs with both gods and men and with the tales of their resulting children." 34 THE MODERN MERMAID "In the twentieth century Post-Freudian thought had exposed the legendary fish-tailed seductress as the personification of the hidden desires of the sexual subconscious, symbolizing primitive castration anxieties and the urge to return to the amniotic waters of the womb. Firmly characterized as an element of the unconscious, the mermaid now abandoned her marine habitat to re-emerge in the irrational dream settings of the Surrealist imagination. Magritte was one of the earliest artists to take such liberties, his stranded inverted ‘mermaid’ of L’Invention Collective (1934) neatly and humorously underlining the perverse eroticism of her original. Paul Delvaux, a later Surrealist much influenced by Magritte introduced the mermaid into his modern dream landscapes in which alluring sirens beckon to oblivious passing businessmen, the contemporary stereotype of masculine frustration." 53 The Lady from the Sea - Edvard Munch, 1896 click on image to enlarge
THE GODDESS The main theme of Goddess symbolism is the mystery of birth and death and the renewal of life... Marija Gimbutas, 1989 Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces offers insight into the roll of the Goddess in myth: The Meeting with the Goddess "The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart.
A Sea Nymph She is the paragon of all paragons of beauty, the reply to all desire, the bliss-bestowing goal of every hero’s earthly and unearthly quest. She is mother, sister, mistress, bride. Whatever in the world has lured, whatever has seemed to promise joy, has been premonitory of her existence— in the deep of sleep, if not in the cities and forests of the world. For she is the incarnation of the promise of perfection; the soul’s assurance that, at the conclusion of its exile in a world of organized inadequacies, the bliss that once was known will be known again: the comforting, the nourishing, the "good" mother—young and beautiful—who was known to us, and even tasted, in the remotest past. Time sealed her away, yet she is dwelling still, like one who sleeps in timelessness, at the bottom of the timeless sea. 55The mythological figure of the Universal Mother imputes to the cosmos the feminine attributes of the first, nourishing and protecting presence. The fantasy is primarily spontaneous; for there exists a close and obvious correspondence between the attitude of the young child toward its mother and that of the adult toward the surrounding material world. But there has been also, in numerous religious traditions, a consciously controlled pedagogical utilization of this archetypal image for the purpose of the purging, balancing, and initiation of the mind into the nature of the visible world.
Woman as the Temptress The mystical marriage with the queen goddess of the world represents the hero’s total mastery of life; for the woman is life, the hero its knower and master. And the testings of the hero, which were preliminary to his ultimate experience and deed, Were symbolical of those crises of realization by means of which his consciousness came to be amplified and made capable of enduring the full possession of the mother-destroyer, his inevitable bride. With that he knows that he and the father are one: he is in the father’s place. 60Thus phrased, in extremist terms, the problem may sound remote from the affairs of normal human creatures. Nevertheless, every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end, to a restriction of consciousness. Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late. The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale. Therefore it is formulated in the broadest terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls. Who and where are his ogres? Those are the reflections of the unsolved enigmas of his own humanity. What are his ideals? Those are the symptoms of his grasp of life. In the office of the modern psychoanalyst, the stages of the hero-adventure come to light again in the dreams and hallucinations of the patient. Depth beyond depth of self-ignorance is fathomed, with the analyst in the role of the helper, the initiatory priest. And always, after the first thrills of getting under way, the adventure develops into a journey of darkness, horror, disgust, and phantasmagoric fears. The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit within ourselves, or within our friends, the fullness of that pushing, self-protective, malodorous, carnivorous, lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell. Rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret; meanwhile imagining that all the flies in the ointment, all the hairs in the soup, are the faults of some unpleasant someone else. But when it suddenly dawns on us, or is forced to our attention, that everything we think or do is necessarily tainted with the odor of the flesh, then, not uncommonly, there is experienced a moment of revulsion: life, the acts of life, the organs of Life, woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure soul.
So exclaims the great spokesman of this moment, Hamlet:
The innocent delight of Oedipus in his first possession of the queen turns to an agony of spirit when he learns who the woman is. Like Hamlet, he is beset by the moral image of the father. Like Hamlet, he turns from the fair features of the world to search the darkness for a higher kingdom than this of the incest and adultery ridden, luxurious and incorrigible mother. The seeker of the life beyond life must press beyond her, surpass the temptations of her call, and soar to the immaculate ether beyond.
Hamlet, I, ii, 129-137.
Where this Oedipus-Hamlet revulsion remains to beset the soul, there the world, the body, and woman above all, become the symbols no longer of victory but of defeat. A monastic -puritanical, world-negating ethical system then radically and immediately transfigures all the images of myth. No longer can the hero rest in innocence with the goddess of the flesh; for she is become the queen of sin. Dante Gabriel Rossetti click on image to enlarge "So long as a man has any regard for this corpse-like body," writes the Hindu monk Shankaracharya, "he is impure, and suffers from his enemies as well as from birth, disease and death; but when he thinks of himself as pure, as the essence of the Good, and the Immovable, he becomes free. . . . Only geniuses capable of the highest realization can support the full revelation of the sublimity of the goddess. For lesser men she reduces her effulgence and permits herself to appear in forms concordant with their undeveloped powers. Fully to behold her would be a terrible accident for any person not spiritually prepared: as witness the unlucky case of the lusty young buck Actaeon. No saint was he, but a sportsman unprepared for the revelation of the form that must be beheld without the normal human (i.e., infantile) over- and undertones of desire, surprise, and fear. Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. And if he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released from every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. By deficient eyes she is reduced to inferior states; by the evil eye of ignorance she is spellbound to banality and ugliness. But she is redeemed by the eyes of understanding. The hero who can take her as she is, without undue commotion but with the kindness and assurance she requires, is potentially the king, the incarnate god, of her created world. 56A story, for example, is told of the five sons of the Irish king Eochaid: of how, having gone one day ahunting, they found themselves astray, shut in on every hand. Thirsty, they set off, one by one, to look for water. Fergus was the first: "and he lights on a well, over which he finds an old woman standing sentry. The fashion of the hag is this: blacker than coal every joint and segment of her was, from crown to ground; comparable to a wild horse’s tail the grey wiry mass of hair that pierced her scalp’s upper surface; with her sickle of a greenish looking tusk that was in her head, and curled till it touched her ear, she could lop the verdant branch of an oak in full bearing; blackened and smoke. bleared eyes she had; nose awry, wide-nostrilled; a wrinkled and freckled befly, variously unwholesome; warped crooked shins, garnished with massive ankles and a pair of capacious shovels; knotty knees she had and livid nails. The beldame’s whole description in fact was disgusting. ‘That’s the way it is, is it?’ said and ‘that’s the very way,’ she answered. ‘Is it guarding the Well thou art?’ he asked, and she said: ‘it is.’ ‘Dost thou licence me to take away some water?’ ‘I do,’ she consented, ‘yet only so that I have of thee one kiss on my cheek.’ ‘Not so,’ said he. ‘Then water shall not be conceded by me.’ ‘My word I give,’ he went on, ‘that sooner than give thee a kiss I would perish of thirst!’ Then the young man departed to the place where his brethren were, and told them that he had not gotten water. 58Olioll, Brian, and Fiachra, likewise, went on the quest and equally attained to the identical well. Each solicited the old thing for water, but denied her the kiss. Finally it was Niall who went, and he came to the very well. "‘Let me have water, woman!’ he cried. ‘I will give it,’ said she, ‘and bestow on me a kiss.’ He answered: ‘forby giving thee a kiss, I will even hug thee!’ Then he bends to embrace her, and gives her a kiss. Which operation ended, and when he looked at her, in the whole world was not a young woman of gait more graceful, in universal semblance fairer than she: to be likened to the last-fallen snow lying in trenches every portion of her was, from crown to sole; plump and queenly forearms, fingers long and taper, straight legs of a lovely hue she had; two sandals of the white bronze betwixt her smooth and soft white feet and the earth; about her was an ample mantle of the choicest fleece. pure crimson, and in the garment a brooch of white silver; she had lustrous teeth of pearl, great regal eyes, mouth red as the rowanberry. ‘Here, woman, is a galaxy of charms,’ said the young man. ‘That is true indeed.’ ‘And who art thou?’ he pursued. ‘"Royal Rule" am I,’ she answered, and uttered this: "‘King of Tara! I am Royal Rule. "‘Go now,’ she said, ‘to thy brethren, and take with thee water; moreover, thine and thy children’s for ever the kingdom and supreme power shall be. . . . And as at the first thou hast seen me ugly, brutish, loathly—in the end, beautiful—even so is royal for without battles, without fierce conflict, it may not be won; but in the result, he that is king of no matter what shows comely and handsome forth.’ 57Such is royal rule? Such is life itself. The goddess guardian of the inexhaustible well—whether as Fergus, or as Actaeon, or as the Prince of the Lonesome Isle discovered her—requires that the hero should be endowed with what the troubadours and minesingers termed the "gentle heart." Not by the animal desire of an Actaeon, not by the fastidious revulsion of such as Fergus, can she be comprehended and rightly served, but only by gentleness: aware ("gentle sympathy") it was named in the romantic courtly poetry of tenth- to twelfth-century Japan.
Within the gentle heart Love shelters himself, As birds within the green shade of the grove. Be fore the gentle heart, in nature’s scheme, Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love. For with the sun, at once, So sprang the light immediately; nor was Its birth before the sun’s. And Love hath his effect in gentleness Of very self; even as Within the middle fire the heat’s excess.
The meeting with the goddess who is incarnate in every woman is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love, which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity." 59
Untitled 1994 ®Connie Imboden Used with permission 46
"The human body is not just the
most magnificent form;
it is the most mysterious as well. An investigation of the human body can lead to the edge of the mind."
Imboden
![]() Untitled 1992 ®Connie Imboden Used with permission 47
Connie Imboden has been photographing the human form underwater for 30 years. Her images are made in the camera with no manipulation in the darkroom or computer. Imboden's work resonates at a very deep level. Her compelling images are clearly human with luscious texture, and form clearly of the flesh. These images are natural, the product of the reflection and refraction of light through water and its surface. The images have always been there, Imboden is the first to see these powerful views and share her vision with others. Because they are naturally occurring images, there is a profound truth in their reality. The images are archetypes that live deep in the cauldron of our collective unconscious and primitive memories. The exquisite beauty juxtaposed with the forces of creation, transmutation, distortions and evolution, transport us to our origins and our very nature. Water is of what we were born, it is the element of renewal, of purity, of cleansing and rebirth. Water is the womb from which the species was born, it is the element through which the greatest transformations occur. Imboden's work is a portal to both our past and to our future, it calls us to our most human of qualities, the desire to transform and transcend our being. More of Imboden's work may be viewed at her website Imboden . The Images above are protected by Copyright - Connie Imboden ©1990-2002, All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or retransmission of these images in any form, format, or variation is strictly prohibited. Something is calling you. Something is calling from the quiet space inside and from the vast universe all around. Something is calling forth the stream inside you and awakening you to your connection with the source. ~~Paul Williams
The powerful role that mermaids, goddesses and Sirens continue to play in our culture is testimony to the profound depth of their identity in the primal soup of the human experience and our collective unconscious. They embody themes that are always with us but often not on the surface of our daily experience and perception. Our society seems to be increasingly at odds with our inherent essence. These images and their associated symbols explore a collective yearning to understand the human condition, our origins, our vulnerability, our mortality, the need for renewal and redemption, the terror of the unknown and our deep desire to be transformed. From the beginning of time, the use of these symbols in the telling and retelling of myths has been an essential component of the human experience. Coney Island Mermaid ®Northstar Gallery
These are deep issues that seek transcendence and express a profound desire to understand the meaning of our existence. Such passion is at the foundation of the great art of the Western World and our ultimate hope that the universe is not random. In her book Sirens - Symbols of Seduction Meri Lao closes with the following: "Sirens are a deforming mirror, a changing screen, containing every possible metamorphosis, fulmination. They speak of death to a civilization that would prefer to ignore it, one that denies their initiatory powers, The winged figures startle with their call. The sudden sonorous arrival of sirens causes a sense of premonition, of threat, provoking that ancestral emotion that triggers chemical reactions and accelerates the heartbeat. They act upon our primitive reptile brain, echoing our own hybrid within, our oldest fear of the claws that slashes or the teeth that drag us into the abyss of the sea. Ensnared by this arcane power, we are pervaded by an obscure sense of dissolution, dismayed and seized by a compulsion to flee. In the past: fear and fascination. In the present: fear only. In the past, a leap into the sea, into darkness, the unknown. Today the alarm, la larme: the tear-essence of human affliction, certainly, but also of boundless joy. The Sirens continue to express themselves through oxymoron. Tear: drop of salty liquid, ultimately. How well Jose Durand wrote: The siren is salt. Inseparable, intimate nature of the seas. Without which it would be tasteless. It is death and life. Sowing salt—the extreme ignominy—is equivalent to sowing death. When salt is lacking—or else, if death is lacking—no life is possible. Salt reigns, the siren reigns, source of grace. Salt and the siren are life and death, and hence, dream. Dream, symbol. We could then say that today’s sirens are the reemergence
of the weeping, hair-tearing, breast-beating tomb Sirens of Greece. Or of those forces who, with a cosmic music, procure the pleasure of death. They
are the inextricable presence of distant and coeval events, of the real and the
phantasmagoric. The last metamorphosis of the Sirens, their last face in
history. And our last rejection of them. Still ambivalent then, indicating both the alarm and the all clear, Sirens
have learned to rise above the feral howling created by man. Since the first
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1. Robson, Deirdre. The Art of the Nude. p5 2. Robinson, David. Saving Graces. Afterward 3. Krupa, Frederique. Paris: Urban Sanitation Before the 20th Century 5. Campbell, Joseph. (1988). The Power of Myth. p.165
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Your comments on The Northstar Gallery are very much valued, please respond to northstar.gallery@verizon.net