Human Form Divine

Ancient sculptures, statuettes and figurines of wide-ranging artistic interpretations of the human form were a way in which man translates the revelation of his many gods. These representations, modeled in clay, bronze, bone, and stone, from the beginning of time, were man's conception of man-gods or humans endowed with divine or supernatural powers.The history of art enables us, in fact, to track down elements of  cultural continuity in the form of the artistic motifs which one civilization pass on to another. The traditionalism of art, adapted in many  forms, goes back to the masterpieces of cave paintings, twelve thousand years before the advent of Christianity. The sculptures, paintings, and  ornaments onwards are a massive recording of the varied heroic stages. The history of art starts its incredible journey by exploring the expressive motifs that challenges the imagination. The animal paintings of the ancient hunters were means of capturing the spirits of their prey  which they hunted for survival. The religion of the earliest farming people demanded the making of majestic images of their departed ancestors which they worshipped. Ritual dances and procession required the fantastic masks with which primitive man used to drive away illness, evil demons and  haunting ghosts, and to placate the spirits of the dead. They may have been idols. The sculptures and figurines that were found in temples, graves and private dwellings, could have represented gods of  popular objects of devotion. Some may have symbolized supernatural beings, such as demoniac dieties or spirits of the dead, etc.. Primitive man was at the mercy of forces of nature; he channeled his hopes into the magic rites and ceremonies: Through them, he believed that the ritual customs would be a safeguard and one that will improve his very existence. Art illustrates this process of thought. Thus, instead  of imposing their order on nature around them, they expressed themselves in order and form in magical material art - from rock paintings to idol figurines. Sympathetic magic, in the form of illustrative art, was the best early primitive man could do to influence his life. Sympathetic magic played a great part in the measures taken by the primitive man to insure that he will have an abundant source of food. The early hunter's typical form of expression is the animal style in rock painting or etched in animal images.. I.e. A Nootka wizard in the frozen wastes of the northern climes would make an image of a fish, then placing it into the waters; through ceremonial rites he hoped that fish would be attracted to the image. HUMAN FORM DIVINE: Throughout the ages human beings have felt a need to surround themselves with carved images of their gods. The earliest worshippers could not cope with abstact ideas of their gods. They had to see, touch, sacrifice to, and sometimes punish them. The gods that Ancient Man created had to be a tangible, complete in form, mainly in the shape of man of woman. The Ancient Egyptians produced a great amount of stone figurines (and massive sculptures) to depict their gods. The man-like figures were always stiffly rigid and demanding in appearance. On the other hand, the Ancient Greeks developed a highly idealistic type of stone sculpture: Their figures twisted and turned, forming stone and clay images that were pleasantly carved. In Babylon, each family had little clay figurines of its own household gods. They worshipped Ishtar, goddess of fertility and her son Tammuz  (When the earth dried in the heat of the summer, the Babylonians called upon Tammuz to rise from the dead and make the earth green again.) The worship of Ishtar (also called Astarte) and Tammuz spread over south- western Asia and reached Egypt in the myth of the goddess Isis and her mate the god Osiris - connected to the flooding of the parched land with  the Nile waters. Later the dieties appeared in Greece as the corn and fertility goddess Dementer and her daughter Persophone: The "twin goddesses" represent the fertility and bounty of the fruits of  the field. Cycladic culture of Early Bronze Age of Crete paid homage to marble idols, generally of women and often life-size in scale, and lavishly painted (incorrectly termed the Mother Goddess). These idols are associated with the powers of the sea, which was central to Cycladic life. The peoples of Assyria worshipped the old Babylonian gods but gave their own tribal god Assur first place. But, the ancient Israelites followed their religious edict, "You shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or under the waters under the earth." (Exodus 20:4) The Minoan goddess, Hera, wife of Zeus, is a central figure of the Minoan (Crete) religion. There are many pieces of archaeological evidence of her worship in the form of votive images, cult idols, and statuettes. Figurines of the goddess, found in gravesites, had clear an association with death and the renewal of life. As votive offerings they represented protection of the goddess in sickness or childbirth. Hera was a household goddess, vegetation goddess, Mother Goddess holding sway over mountain, earth, sky and sea. The Ancient Greeks worshipped many gods and goddesses. But, Aphrodite was particularly venerated by many, not only as a love goddess, but as a nature goddess because she came from the sea. Greek sailors prayed to her divine image to calm winds and the waves. Each family in Rome had its own god, or LAR, originally a god of the cultivated fields. The LARS were worshipped by each household at various crossroads where it properly joined that of others. Later in time, the Romans worshipped Vesta, goddess of the hearth who guaranteed perpetual fire in the hearth. Officials of Rome carved stone figures called PENATES, gods who watched over the community; they were depicted in the figures of men wearing military cloaks, carrying lances and accompanied by dogs. Within time small figurines of PENATES was place in niches in homes in order to protect the householder and his family. (Originally the PENATES were two deities of the storeroom.) MASKS OF THE HUMAN FORM DIVINE: Masks were put on tombs and within graves, on personal possessions, and in fields to watch over the harvest. War masks, not only were supposed to frighten the enemy, but also to protect the warrior. Masks have been long used to guard against misfortune and cure disease. The decorative ceremonial masks commonly represent gods and other supernatural mythical beings. They may be horrible to look at in order to frighten the evil spirits and demons; or comic in appearance to ward off evil by laughter. Death masks of hammered gold or silver, carved wood, or painted cloth were made to accompany mummified bodies to their eternal abode. A burial mask was though as a kind of guardian spirit. Underlying such meaning is the idea that the mask, like the head it represented is the location of the life of the soul. Burial masks in gold leaf are known from pre-Greek Mycenae as early as the second millennium; they were probably intended not only to preserve the appearance of the person, but also to preserve the person through magic. The Romans used facemasks, molded in wax and painted in a natural way during the services for the dead: Later the masks were kept by the families as a precious memento. In Ancient Egypt, heads of stone were put in tombs to insure that the dead person would continue to exist. Masks of snake-haired gorgons, of satyrs were placed in the corners of Greek temples as guardians. And, today, within the climes of Oceania and Africa, ceremonial decorated masks depicting gods and spirits are common. THE GREAT MOTHER GODDESS: The goddess is known as the Universal Mother of the world, giver of life, Mistress of all elements, Queen of heaven, "Thou art the pristine spirit, the nature of which is bliss; thou art the ultimate nature and clear light of heaven, which illuminates for all time..." (Plutarch) The awareness soon found expression in the first signs of true art. From the early ages of man down through the Neolithic Age they were shaped in clay, depicted on rock paintings, carved from bone and stone. In the beginning the figures, found over a wide range worldwide show a consistency of shape and theme; a female figure with rudimentary features, but with prominent breasts, depicting woman's bodily capacity to give birth, to nuture and suckle, and eventually to die and be reborn. At the site of Halicar in Turkey which dates from around 5600 BC, exquisitely stylized sculptures of the Mother Goddess were found. Here we can see her as a Maiden with a long braid of hair down her back, as Mother with child at her breast - a clear representation of the human figure. In the 3rd and 2nd millennia, the Goddess found exuberant expression in the art of Minoan Crete; the brightly colored pottery and frescoes depict in line and expression the beauties of Nature governing the female aspect of  the Mother Goddess. Civilizations onwards symbolized the Mother Goddess in the continued depictions of the HUMAN FORM DIVINE. The primary identification of the images of the mother goddess was with the fruitful earth. She was worshipped as the Great Mother, known as INANA in Sumeria, ISHTAR in Babylon, ASTARTE or ANAT among the Canaanites. In Iran NAHITA the goddess 'who purifies the seed of males and the womb and milk of females', was worshipped. The Ancient Greeks venerated the Venus of the Sea, APHRODITE as their mother goddess. In The Roman world it was CYBELE who eventually came to be honored as the Great Mother of gods. There was the Anatolian goddess MA whose attendants called 'Fanatici' that were known from their wild excesses. (It is the origin of the word 'fanatic'). Further in the Teutonic north, FREYJA, the tribal goddess shared her womb with the male gods of the pantheon... In India and the Far East, from the 3rd millennium onwards, the dominant agricultural need was one of fertility; numerous finds are almost the divine form of the female, the prime diety the 'Mother Goddess'. And in the advent of Christianity the Great Mother was transferred to the Virgin Mary. But, among the Ancient Hebrews the worship or adoration of the Mother Goddess is perceived as an abomination and of all the natural  functions of life - the proper realm of goddess - are seen as unclean according to the 'ritual of purity' coded in the Book of Leviticus. The new order of the patriarchal system was established in the name of morality. It rests with its God who willfully created the universe and gave to the 'sons of man' divine sanction over the earth and over its creatures. THE DIVINE KING: Many places in the ancient world the throne of the 'Great Mother Goddess' was usurped by a patriarchal figure. They transformed the 'mother goddess' into a demon, a serpent monster or dragon to be destroyed or slain. In India the 'serpent demon' Goddess Danu was slain by the Lord of the mountain; in Babylon the 'son of the sun' Marduk murders her dragon mother Tiamat; The sons of Gaia, Typhon and Python, were killed by the storm god Zeus and by Apollo, the sun god. To express their power and eternal life the male deities were carved in the hardest stone and with colossal proportion. i.e. the statues of  Rameses II at Abu Simbel at the tributary of the Lower Nile. As far back as 5000 years in Egypt religion was the dominant feature in the life on earth, and it required certain preparations for the life beyond. Sculpture was entirely associated with the needs of the religion, and gods or with earthly rulers who were regarded as their representations. To symbolize the god-like role of their kings they were represented as half-human half-animal i.e. the ram-headed sphinxes which led to the great temple Amun-Re at Karnak near Thebes. (The symbol of the sun god Amun, the embodiement of wisdom, mystery and power.) From Sumeria have come fine examples of works of the 'Human Form Divine' in marble, diorite, hammered gold and lapis lazuli. Of the many portraits etched in stone, some of the best are of Gudea, ruler of  Laglash. Babylonian and Assyrian sculptures of its male deities are impressive in its vitality, massiveness and rich imagination. Huge fanciful animal sculptures with human heads were at the entrance of palaces as guards. Marduk became the high god and patron saint of the city of Babylon; he had been allotted 'the divine' worship of the multitude of the people, with his likeness on massive sculpture to household figurines. The Ancient Greeks around the fourth to the third centuries BC made terra-cotta figurines of the Kings of Boeteo which they placed in their tombs for the protection of the departed. The Roman emperors required realistic depictions of their divine gods, enshrined in triumphal arches to impress their people. And to the Christian faith there was a determination to break away from all the pagan, Goddess-tinged past. God as the Creator had to be firmly established as a 'son of man'. He and his heavenly realm had to be presented as the only refuge from the sinful and dangerous earthly world. The religion and science of the day affirmed their right to conquer and to exercise domination over all the creatures of the earth. CONCLUSION: The transformations of the old religions pagan deities and representation of the 'Human Form Divine' was accepted in Christian doctrines. The sacred groves and temples were replaced by cathedrals. All the seasonal ritual activity was recognized as forming the cycle of  life and renewal of life was officially sanctioned by the Christian Church - for the church fathers were quick to adopt the old pagan calendar of festivals and transform them into Christian feast days. Throughout the lands that adopted the faith of Christianity, the pagan  shrines and temples of Diana, Minerva, Isia, Aphrodite, Juno, etc. came to be occupied by the Virgin Mary; Notre Dame and other Gothic cathedrals were called "Palaces of the Queen of Heaven". The Holy Places of Nature dedicated to Brigit, Morgan, Helen now became the source of miraculous healings dedicated to the Virgin. Early Christians had a fascination with angels and demons, which led to their frequent depictions in art (and literature). The paintings, stained glass, mosaics, and sculptures of the Middle Ages and Renaissance are replete with them. I.e. They started the practice of making amulets and manikins, figurines from the 'Mandrake' plant. In Germany they were called 'Alruna' which referred to witches and they were consulted as oracles. French peasants believed these amulet figures to be the home of the elf. (In other countries of Medieval Europe the spirit had a more monstrous form.) They were carefully attended and the figurines gave advice, multiplied riches and so forth, but if they were neglected its owner might die. Crucifixes and images of saints were required for home devotion and for wayside shrines. Even the decorated Easter egg is an old pagan custom as the evolution of the egg as a symbol of the renewal of life. This renewal was visible in the new growths of springtime, and Easter is in the Spring. Spring was the time for planting and fertility ceremonies for the blessing of the fields and the coming bountiful harvest in the autumn months continues this very day in Christian ceremonies. "The Valley Spirit never dies, Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang. It is there within us all the while. Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry..." (Tao Te Ching) BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1) Exhibition, "The Human Form Divine" - Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem. Artefacts from the private collection of Dr. Elie Borowski, founder of the Museum that chronicles the artistic, spiritual and physical interpretation of the human figure in ancient art. 2) The Encyclopedia of World Mythology forwarded by Rex Warner. 3) Goddess, Mother of Living Nature, Adele Getty. 4) Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Prometheus Press, New York 5) Prehistoric and Primitive Man, Andreas Lommel