Primitive art of the peoples of Africa, Oceania, Asia

[Art-lover]

The message#58 dealt with the fact that the original processing motifs of African art in the late 20 th century as a whole was not peculiar to Western artistic mentality. The more interesting cases which fall from this scheme.

Svetlana Tumanov. Adam and Eve. Diptych. x., m., 1990.

The work dates from the early, "doabstraktnomu" period of creativity Tumanov. In this small diptychs, in spite of its seemingly decorative nature, clearly there is an internal drama.

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It is palpable sort of riddle, and his laconic tantalizing promise of an easy answer to it. The answer however, escapes, and the picture does not let go of yourself.
To free oneself from the hypnosis masks I partly succeeded - but at the cost of their interpretation in the spirit of traditionalism.

The followers of Guenon, Eliade and Jung probably would have said that the faces of Adam and Eve reflect this dualism and the eternal struggle cosmogonic began. The dialectic relationship of these began to be read in the painting through the "African" decor as a synthesis of the motives of European and partly Oriental mythologies.

Red and black - the fire of creation and the gloom of the abyss of space, light and darkness, yin and yang, male and female. In the main cosmogonic scheme of Chinese philosophy - the drawing of the Grand limit - the light contains the germ of darkness, and darkness - the germ of light, in the scheme of yin and yang are symmetrical. Similarly, pupils in the diptych of Adam - the colors of the mask Eve, Eve's eyes - the colors of the mask of Adam. But the landmark color film is not subject to symmetry, and the special drama.

Can suppose that luminous Adam - this is the Gnostic Anthropos, he is Adam Kadmon - the spiritual first man Kabbalistic mysticism. This interpretation is confirmed by the shape of the eye sockets of Adam: In the symbolism of Freemasonry Adam Kadmon corresponds with the emblem of a six-pointed star.

In the background and the face of Adam stretch black crack, strewn with star-dust. In the background of faces of Eve dance fiery prominences. Background created from shades of green and blue - is, of course, the thin veil of nature, the fabric of the material world, the gaps which expose the mystical ocean of fire and darkness - those first principles, of which set up and mask the Adam and Eve.

The viewer's eye, met with a red eye mask, passes through the eyes of Adam and drowning in a black void primal (Prima Materia alchemists) to come up the right side of the picture and concentrate on the black mask, personifying the shadow beginning in the form of Eve. But the darkness, with all its infernal power and apparent autonomy, in its last fact - just the restriction of light. Gravity darkness to light transmitted barely noticeable bend black mask in the direction of the red, prompting the viewer to move the view of Adam.

Fire - under the guise of darkness, the darkness - under the guise of fire. What other mysteries tells the picture? The lips are sealed mask: the real secret is not expressible in words.

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This interpretation might suggest that the author of the picture if not a Mason, you probably already busy culture-exploration and psychoanalysis. But it is well known: creating a painting, the artist did not think about the ancient mythologies, or about a particular Masonic symbolism.
And yet, that text is not a futile fantasy: the presence of deep symbolism of the unconscious, intuitive ability to translate the mythological and cultural archetypes in new artistic forms - characteristic of creativity Tumanov. Therefore Tumanovo often considered to be surrealist, although she does not associate itself with this direction.

Spirit painting "Adam and Eve" completely different than the spirit of African sculpture. Primitive Art of African natives use the form primarily to enhance the physical presence of magical powers in real life. Diptych Tumanovo using force close to the primitive "magical" forms, reflects the tragedy of ancestral spiritual metaphysical oppositions of Western culture.

He tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, a man fixed his eyes to comprehend the mysteries of the world, but reached no knowledge of his promise of happiness: his soul is split, just as in the picture is split mask Adam.