On Octagons

As reported in a previous post – here – the moment one ventures from the Indian world into the Chinese world one is confronted by a wash of the lucky colour red. Red, or more correctly vermillion, or cinnabar, is the colour of the Chinese and Chinese-influenced traditions. It is very conspicuous. It is everywhere. And along with it, also conspicuous, is the profusion of eight-sided figures, octagons, within the Sino-Asiatic order. They are nowhere to be seen in Hindoo temples, nor in Boodhist temples even though Boodhism features an eightfold path – this takes the form of the eight-spoked Dharma Wheel in typical Boodhist iconography. The octagon, however – the eight-sided plain figure with or without an eight-pointed star – is conspicuously Chinese. 

The author of these pages is currently resident in the old city of George Town on the Prince of Wales Island, the only city in Malaysia that boasts a Chinese majority. A feature of the old city is the beautiful temples and clan houses, some of them very extensive and sumptuous, some very old. They are among the best Taoist and Confucian temples outside of China proper. Chinese from both Formosa and the mainland travel to George Town to visit them. It is a major temple city and a major centre of traditional Chinese religion.

An immediately obvious feature of such temples, and the attending buildings, and the Chinese domestic terrace houses too, is the proliferation of octagonal forms – tile designs, floor patterns, sacred insignia, altar iconography, and so on. The Chinese “lucky colour” is vermillion. The “lucky number”, as the Chinese will tell you, is eight. Sets of eight, preferably arranged in octagonal forms, are considered auspicious. It is by far the most common geometrical motif in traditional Chinese decoration.

Below are a few examples of octagonal forms to be seen around George Town. Some of the roads feature large octagonal designs and octagonal tile designs are everywhere to be seen. The geometrical tiles themselves were originally imported from Sheffield by the British, but the Chinese were so taken by them – such is their love of the octagonal pattern - that they adopted them as a standard feature of their homes, temples and pathways. The present author has noted the tile patterns of George Town - one of the most striking and beautiful features of the old city - in a previous post here.

 

Octagons feature as a design on several streets in George Town old city. 

Design on the wall of the Chinese clan association building in George Town

Octagonal tile patterns found throughout George Town

What, though, is the significance of the octagon, both in principle and specifically to the Chinese? It is, of course, not exclusive to the Chinese tradition; it does feature in the symbolism of other traditional orders as well, but nowhere so extensively. In the occidental order we find it the symbolic form of baptism. Several famous baptistries, such as that in Florence, are octagonal, and – a residual continuation of the same symbolism - baptistimal fonts in Catholic and some Anglican and Lutheran churches. Amongst Christians, though, it is a form more typical of the Eastern churches where it occurs naturally with a sacred architecture featuring a dome atop of rectilinear understorey. 

This is the form appropriated from the Byzantine Christians by the Mahometans when they built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem – perhaps the most impressive octagonal building in the world. It was possibly from this inspiration that Emperor Frederick – who had seen the Dome of the Rock during the Crusades - built his mysterious octagonal folly, the Castel de Monte, in southern Italy. All the same, these architectural examples are exceptions. The octagon is not as conspicuous as a symbol in the occidental world as it is in the orient. It occurs naturally in Mahometan geometrical patterns, but there it is not imbued with the same symbolic value – marked as “auspiciousness” – that we find among the Chinese. 

The Castel del Monte

Basically, the symbolism of the octagon is this: it is an intermediate form between the circle (of heaven) and the square (of earth). Its primary meaning therefore is: regeneration. It signals: the square that returns to the circle. That is, it consists of two superimposed squares which are in the process of returning into a circular form. Thus the association with baptism: the rite of regeneration. In the Chinese (which is to say Taoist) context, though – and this is quite apart from its correspondences with the eight trigrams of the I Ching and other symbolic parallels such as the eight directions – the signification of regeneration is overtly alchemical. 

As with the colour red, the meaning behind the “luck” the Chinese associate with the symbol is to be understood via the strongly alchemical nature of the Chinese order. Alchemy concerns exactly this: regeneration. The regeneration of matter into spirit (if we are to describe it dualistically). The regeneration of base metals into gold. In the octagon, the square (matter, earth) is regenerating into the circle (spirit, heaven). It is for this reason that it finds such a prominent place in the Chinese tradition – it is the pre-eminent (stable) expression of the doctrine of alchemical regeneration, which is the core theme of Chinese spirituality. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Kolam: Patterns at the Portals

The designs shown on this page are all from a single street in Mattancherry.

The tradition of “kolam” – also called “rangoli” and other names in other parts of Hindoostan ("kolam" being the Tamil word) – is thought to be very ancient. Being an ephemeral art it is very hard to tell. It consists of inscribing geometrical or interlaced patterns on the floor or ground, especially at the entrance to buildings. In an earlier post on these pages (see here) the present writer revealed his fascination for the symbolism of portals and doorways. Kolam is a traditional folk art that is associated with that symbolism. He collects photographs of portals, but he also keeps a collection of kolam designs as he encounters them during his travels. 

In the north of India, in Rajistan and elsewhere, the inscribed patterns are often coloured and resemble what are usually called mandalas. Often they are found on walls or the sides of buildings. In the south, though, the more ancient and rustic practices are preserved and the patterns are found at doorways or on the steps at the front of houses. It is a domestic religious art. Certain patterns are preserved and passed down through families, usually among women. The custom in the south is for women to sweep the doorstep of the house every morning and to inscribe the kolam on the ground using rice powder, a flour paste or, these days, chalk. 

The present author saw a great many such patterns in Bangalore during a visit there several years ago. On his recent journey he has only seen kolam in certain areas of Cochin, specifically some streets in the town of Nazareth and parts of Mattancherry. In particular, one street, resident to a community of Brahmin families, had a large collection of patterns drawn at the front of every house. The pictures illustrating this page are from that street in Mattancherry. 

A very handsome Brahmin gentleman invited the author to photograph them and was happy to discuss them, but he explained that it was largely a matter for womenfolk and he could not provide much information about the actual significances of particular patterns. Some are simple. Some are complex. Some are floriform. Some are astral and star-like. Some are explicitly geometric. Often women pride themselves on being able to inscribe the pattern in a single unbroken movement without lifting the chalk from the ground. “They invite in the god,” the Brahmin explained. This idea is the usual explanation – the patterns are an invitation to the gods, or to good spirits, or to “luck”. Inscribing the pattern at the entryway to the house every morning is regarded as auspicious. 

It should be noted, though, that the patterns are often labyrinthine, and are in this sense connected to portals and doorways. It is sometimes explained that the patterns are designed to bamboozle evil spirits that might try to enter an abode – that, quite the opposite to an “invitation to the god”, they are a barrier to the devil. 

This author is of the opinion that, most probably, the original idea behind such patterns is – like so much other traditional symbolism – astronomical in nature, and that the patterns represent the motions of heavenly bodies and planets as seen from a geocentric viewpoint. They are thus an extension of the astronomical symbolism of portals. The symbolism of the patterns is thus primordial, although its original significance has been forgotten. This is characteristic of Indian religion in general: it persists since very early times and is a remembrance of primordial forms, although the original ideas have been forgotten. Kolam are probably among the clearest examples of this - ancient, primordial patterns preserved as a mere "folk  art" in a simple domestic context. This most humble of art forms might, in fact, be the most pure and profound. The author hopes to explain more of this and expand upon it in later posts.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Pamela Colman Smith - A Savant With a Child's Heart

Anyone with even the slightest familiarity with the tarocci or “tarot” cards will be acquainted with the work of Miss Pamela Colman Smith, although they may be excused for not knowing her name. In the early years of the XXth century Miss Smith – an Anglo-American illustrator – was commissioned by the Masonic occultist Mr Arthur Waite to design a complete set of all seventy-eight cards of the traditional tarot deck. She completed this work in a remarkably short period of time between April and October 1909 and some time after this the cards were published by William Rider & Sons of London under the title ‘A Pictorial Key to the Tarot’. They have thereafter been known as the ‘Rider-Waite’ tarot and the name of the illustrator was not included in the title or on the box. This omission was then duplicated in 1971 when the American company US Games Inc. purchased the copyright to the cards and reissued them to the American market, making them the most well-known and popular tarot cards of the modern era. Today, the ‘Rider-Waite’ cards have become infused into popular culture to the extent that they may be regarded as prototypal; there are countless new sets on the market today, each with new illustrations on new themes, but the Rider-Waite cards are, as it were, a standard. It is a great pity then that the illustrator, the person most responsible for the indelible images of the cards, is not better known. It was an injustice she suffered in her own lifetime. Mr. Waite paid her only a token fee for her work and she received no royalties from sales. Born in 1878, she died penniless, debt-ridden and forgotten in 1951. 

By virtue of the ‘Rider-Waite’ tarot, however, Miss Smith – she was generally known as “Pixie” – must be credited as having had a profound impact upon the visual imagination of the modern West. Her tarot cards, rendered in her simple, linear style with Art Nouveau influence, are her masterpiece. The remarkable thing is that she was able to translate the instructions of the verbose and tedious Mr. Waite into compelling images that arrest the imagination and, most importantly, impose themselves upon the memory. No other design of the tarot comes near to Miss Smith’s in this respect. Others are more beautiful and yet others are more symbolically exact, perhaps, but Miss Smith made the tarot her own. She entered into the spirit of the cards and conjured images of a strongly mnemonic concrete lyricism that truly captured something of the zeitgeist of the modern occult revival, a defining counter-modernist trend that shaped early XXth century. 

They bear comparison and contrst to the cards made by Lady Frieda Harris under the instruction of the sinister Aleister Crowley. Superficially, those of Lady Harris have a deeper artistic merit, and Mr. Crowley has packed the designs with Qabbalistic allusions, but finally, compared to the charming directness of the Pixie Smith designs, they are turgid and pretentious. Miss Smith understood one of the keys to the tarot: the images on the cards are essentially caricatures. This is so in the medieval designs and she has retained that medieval flavor. The Crowley or ‘Thoth’ deck is, in contrast, a modernist mess. The same can be said of other more recent designs. They are contrived by comparison. No one quite captures the spirit of the tarot, and renders it modern yet integral, like Miss Smith.

The actual processes by which the Waite-Smith collaboration took place are not certain, but it seems likely that Mr. Waite’s input was largely restricted to the twenty-two Major Arcana. Of the fifty-six pip cards – the Minor Arcana – it is likely that Miss Smith had a very free hand. They, therefore, are her creation, and it is there that we see her genius. Mr. Waite’s Major Trumps display elements of his eclectic and sometimes misleading mash of symbols. Miss Smith’s Minor Arcana is a playhouse of little dramas and quaint allegories that bring the much-neglected minor cards new vitality. The chief inspiration for the Major Arcana seems to have been the XVIIIth century Tarot of Marseilles, while for the Minor Marcana Miss Smith appears to have looked to the Sola Busca Tarot of the XVth century for her model. The illustrator has successfully retained the essence of those earlier decks and recreated them in a new pictorial vocabulary. This is no small achievement. It is an achievement that is too often underestimated by those who like to criticize this tarot and sing the virtues of newer designs that are full of reckless innovations and artistic egoism. Miss Smith’s designs are not technically accomplished, but at least she shows faultless judgment as to how and when to depart from her medieval models and there is no egoism to be seen in the least.

The present writer, in any case, is an outspoken enthusiast for what should rightly be called the ‘Pixie Smith’ Tarot, and more broadly for Miss Smith’s art in general. Her tarot – even where Arthur Waite imposed his cranky symbolism upon the Major cards - is simply unsurpassed. She made the form her own. Her designs define the tarot in this epoch. She was not, admittedly, a great artist by the usual standards, and she was certainly not a successful one in monetary terms or in terms of wide recognition. Had she not made tarot cards for Mr. Waites she might have disappeared into obscurity entirely. But her work is beautiful and distinctive by other standards, with a unique charm, a delightful sense of decorative whimsy, a lovely innocence, an enchanting sense of the fay. Stuart Kaplan, director of US Games Inc., once remarked that had she lived in his day he could have made her a millionaire.

Miss Smith designed bookplates, made illustrations for numerous books and at one stage edited and illustrated her own magazine, the ‘Green Sheath’ which claimed its own ‘school’ of fellow artists. She came into contact with Mr. Waites through the poet W. B. Yeats who employed her as an illustrator for his poems and who inducted her into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Despite this dalliance with the occult, however, she later converted to Catholicism and throughout her later years ran a boarding house for old priests in Cornwall. 

Her real qualifications for illustrating the tarot was her passion for folklore; wrote or co-wrote and illustrated several books on the subject, including one of Jamaican folklore entitled Annancy Stories. It sold poorly but it was the work that first attracted the attention of the Yeats family who were, at the time, looking for an artist to illustrate Gaelic tales. The father of W. B. Yeats, John, once described her work in an extant letter as follows: “Pamela,” he said…

“…is bringing out a book of Jamaica folklore. Her work, whether a drawing or telling of a piece of folklore, is very direct and sincere and therefore original - its originality being its naïveté. I should feel safe in getting her to illustrate anything. She does not draw well, but has the right feeling for line and expression and colour.”

Then he adds in summary:

“I don't think there is anything great or profound in her, or very emotional or practical. She has the simplicity and naïveté of an old dry-as-dust savant - a savant with a child's heart.”

This is a blunt assessment but also a very accurate account of her character and work - nothing great or profound but a savant with a child’s heart. This is the quality that Mr. Yeats recognized in her and that she brought to Mr. Waite’s tarot cards. It is the quality that makes her one of the most endearing of the supposedly lesser female artists of her time. We see this quality in all her work, samples of which are given below. It is her folkish lack of sophistication and her naïveté that made her the perfect vehicle for the spirit of the modern tarot. In the estimation of the present author, at least, Pamela Colman Smith – Pixie Smith – deserves far greater appreciation than she received in her lifetime or since and should be counted as an important artist in her own right. It is fashionable in some circles to disparage the ‘Rider-Waite’ tarot because it is now deemed ‘old fashioned’ or lacking in a contemporary aesthetic. This is a miscalculation of its worth. It is still the best tarot. The inspired naïveté of Pixie Smith lives still. The simplicity of the 'Rider-Waite' designs – the simplisticity of their illustrator – is an original and honest simplicity that taps deep into the medieval roots of the tarot and speaks directly to the modern Western consciousness. Her other work has the same charm and deserves to be celebrated in wider circles today. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Stable or Cave: The Nativity

With Christmas upon us, this post is dedicated - without much commentary - to traditional depictions of the nativity. The following are a collection of some of the author's favourite versions of this perennial theme in Christian iconography.

Only two things need to be said:

1. In eastern iconography the nativity takes place in a cave. That is, Christ is nurtured in the womb of the earth. This introduces and invites a very rich seam of symbolism, both in regards the nature of the Logos, and in regards the nature of the Virgin Mary. In western iconography, however, depictions of the nativity as having taken place in a stable came to predominate. This has various implications. For a start, let us note, a stable is a man-made structure, as opposed to a cave. Moreover, it gives the scene a strong social element, whereas the eastern type is more cosmological. In the west, the stable underlines the lowly social status of the holy family. The meaning of the stable is that Christ was born among the lowest of the low. In the west, the emphasis is less on the sociology of the scene and more on its cosmic significance.

2. Nothing illustrates the differing temperaments of the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox versions of traditional Christianity than the contrast noted above (1). If you ask, what is the difference between the Catholics and the Orthodox you need only look at the following nativities. Historically, of course, the Orthodox remains focused upon a strictly traditional iconography - its icon tradition remains intact to this day. In Europe, the so-called Renaissance introduced a humanism that broke from the Byzantine icon tradition and, in effect, Western Christianity thereafter set out upon a very different journey. 

The Divine Light (seed) penetrates the womb of the earth. This picture shows the usual elements of the Byzantine prototypes - reclining Mary, the Christ Child in the centre, the mountain, the cave within the mountain, the darkness of the cave punctured by the celestial light. (Note that Mary is usually turned away from the baby, not doting on him. In the anti-Byzantine Renaissance tradition, mother and child become sociological figures. Here they are cosmic figures - their relationship is not 'human' in the humanistic sense. It is an important distinction. In the West, people read the turned-away Virgin as "cold" and "un-maternal". They start to paint the Virgin and Child in a loving embrace. In the eastern iconography, however, it signals a metaphysical relationship, not a human one. See the following Byzantine version by Guido de Sienna:

It is not an accident that the Virgin is turned away from the Child.  But it is a non-human gesture that worries the Western temperament which is less intellectual and more sentimental than the Eastern. Accordingly, Western iconography moves to the 'human' and sentimental plane, as we see in Giotto. Real people, real Mother/child, real emotions. The western (Catholic) temperament approves of this:

(For discussion, see here.)

Giotto. Mary doting on her newborn. Giotto's figures occupy real space. Increasingly, from Giotto onwards, pictorial space becomes 'real' space and events are occuring in history rather than in eternity. 

Bernardo Daddi 

Gentile de Fabriano. Alongside the humanistic and volumistic early Renaissance Giotto style there was also 'International Gothic'. This style emphasizes the magical and the mysterious. The darkness of the forest and the starry night - that is International Gothic. Note, in this painting by Gentile de Fabriano, the supernatural light source. The painting is lit by a divine light, not a natural light as in Giotto. This is a wonderful painting. 

(Master of the Castello Nativity.) 

Duccio tries to have it both ways. His version signals the shifting iconography. His nativity shows a stable but apparently the stable is in a cave.

Fra Angelico 

In this version, note the centrality of the ass and the cow and the manger. Christ is central in the foreground (forward centre stage) but structurally the centre of the image is the doorway between the two panels that frame the heads of Joseph and Mary. This has an astronomical significance and alludes to the birth of the Sun Child on the Solstice. (Ass/Horse and Cow represent active and passive. The symbolism concerns the two halves of the year/zodiac, ascending and descending, and hence the solstice as the turning point.) Below is a further version of the same iconography:

The Mystic Nativity, so-called; a painting championed by Mr.Ruskin. Bottocelli situates the nativity within a total cosmology. The humble stable - which is here an extension of the primordial cave - becomes part of a larger scheme.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black