LOCAL CULTURES and the UNIVERSAL

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It is important to understand the way in which cultures interact with each other, and their social function, when exploring the link between culture and the dissemination of ideas, political and religious as well as cultural. Civilized forms of exchange, affected the way people thought, and related to their natural environment. Knowledge systems, along with primal beliefs that link the human to the Divine, brought about ways of worship, and a sense of sacred space. Temples and images gave coherence to the spiritual orientation underlying a cultural world view. A prevailing cosmology provided meaning to the social and political order, and helped in the establishment of empires which were forever extending their boundaries.
A concept of the universal, includes the diversity of cultures within an over-arching framework of interconnecting symbols. The temple or holy place for worship, is a microcosm that reflects the unity of a divinely ordained cosmos. The local, or particular, is given the significance of a part, reflecting a teleological whole.
The relation of Gospel to culture also influences the way in which we understand modern ecological issues, where industry and science are effecting our whole environment. Globalization of culture is part of the problem when thinking about the importance of local cultures, in relation to their natural and geographic context.

important to understand connecting links between cultures, and their social function, when exploring the link between culture and the dissemination of ideas, political and religious as well as cultural. Civilized forms of exchange, affected the way people thought, and related to their natural environment. Knowledge systems, along with primal beliefs that link the human to the Divine, brought about ways of worship, and a sense of sacred space. Temples and images gave coherence to the spiritual orientation underlying a cultural world view. A prevailing cosmology provided meaning to the social and political order, and helped in the establishment of empires which were forever extending their boundaries.
A concept of the universal, includes the diversity of cultures within an over-arching framework of interconnecting symbols. The temple or holy place for worship, is a microcosm that reflects the unity of a divinely ordained cosmos. The local, or particular, is given the significance of a part, reflecting a teleological whole.
The relation between culture and nature is a vital concern when thinking about the way that environmental issues affect our understanding of the Gospel in the modern globalized and industrialized world.

It is important to understand roads of communication, and their social function, when exploring the link between culture and the dissemination of ideas, political and religious as well as cultural. Civilized forms of exchange, affected the way people thought, and related to their natural environment. Knowledge systems, along with primal beliefs that link the human to the Divine, brought about ways of worship, and a sense of sacred space. Temples and images gave coherence to the spiritual orientation underlying a cultural world view. A prevailing cosmology provided meaning to the social and political order, and helped in the establishment of empires which were forever extending their boundaries.
A concept of the universal, includes the diversity of cultures within an over-arching framework of interconnecting symbols. The temple or holy place for worship, is a microcosm that reflects the unity of a divinely ordained cosmos. The local, or particular, is given the significance of a part, reflecting a teleological whole.

Trading in Culture.

The Second Vatican Council provided a new theological basis for what was termed a process of “inculturating” the Church into local cultures in the non-Western world. This process was understood as a way of incarnating the Divine Word into another cultural context, by using local forms to embody what was understood as being the Universal principles underlying the Gospel. This valuing of cultures other than what characterizes European civilization, led also to the translating of the Bible into many other languages. The process of translation cannot simply be a literal one. Words, like images, carry their own ambience of meanings, and symbolic over-tones, which draw on the memory, and mytho-poetic world from which cultures have emerged.

Second Vatican Council provided a new theological basis for what was termed a process of “inculturating” the Church into local cultures in the non-Western world. This process was understood as a way of incarnating the Divine Word into another cultural context, by using local forms to embody what was understood as being the Universal principles underlying the Gospel. This valuing of cultures other than what characterizes European civilization, led also to the translating of the Bible into many other languages. The process of translation cannot simply be a literal one. Words, like images, carry their own ambience of meanings, and symbolic over-tones, which draw on the memory, and mytho-poetic world from which cultures have emerged.

The Divine Incarnation into a world of cultural images.

f we look at the way Religious traditions spread in the first millennia and a half of the Common Era, we are conscious that while Christianity followed the fortunes of the Greco-Roman empire, civilizations of the East had also their sense of Mission and spiritual quest. Thus the ancient Mauryan empire, especially under the rule of Ashoka, did much to spread Buddhism and other forms of Indian spirituality right across Asia. Later, Islam spread over central Asia to India and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
This link between Faith and civilization needs to be better understood, or we may be in danger of viewing the emergence of a Global culture in the light of what Huntington termed a ‘clash of Civilizations’. There is nothing intrinsically Christian about European Civilization, and Asian Cultures are not by their nature at variance with Gospel values. Yet many missionaries, accompanying European adventurers in search of Asian resources for trade, thought they were bringing civilization along with the Christian Faith to ignorant natives given to idolatrous cults. The link between Gospel and Culture represents a ‘counter-culture’. This counter cultural aspect of the Gospel challenges the very notion of colonialism. The hunger for power is fundamentally opposed to the vision of Jesus concerning a ‘Kingdom of God’ here on earth. To impose one form of civilization on another, gives rise to situations of conflict that endanger the future of the whole planet earth. The concept of Gospel in relation to cultures, and especially the cultures of the dispossessed, or marginalized, underlies a new understanding of “Mission” as a dialogue between cultures, that is respectful of the diversity of peoples, in relation to the diversity that we find in nature itself, and which needs to be protected and celebrated if Creation is to be furthered, as Divinely ordained.

f we look at the way Religious traditions spread in the first millennia and a half of the Common Era, we are conscious that while Christianity followed the fortunes of the Greco-Roman empire, civilizations of the East had also their sense of Mission and spiritual quest. Thus the ancient Mauryan empire, especially under the rule of Ashoka, did much to spread Buddhism and other forms of Indian spirituality right across Asia. Later, Islam spread over central Asia to India and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
This link between Faith and civilization needs to be better understood, or we may be in danger of viewing the emergence of a Global culture in the light of what Huntington termed a ‘clash of Civilizations’. There is nothing intrinsically Christian about European Civilization, and Asian Cultures are not by their nature at variance with Gospel values. Yet many missionaries, accompanying European adventurers in search of Asian resources for trade, thought they were bringing civilization along with the Christian Faith to ignorant natives given to idolatrous cults. The link between Gospel and Culture represents a ‘counter-culture’. This counter cultural aspect of the Gospel challenges the very notion of colonialism. The hunger for power is fundamentally opposed to the vision of Jesus concerning a ‘Kingdom of God’ here on earth. To impose one form of civilization on another, gives rise to situations of conflict that endanger the future of the whole planet earth. The concept of Gospel in relation to cultures, and especially the cultures of the dispossessed, or marginalized, underlies a new understanding of “Mission” as a dialogue between cultures, that is respectful of the diversity of peoples, in relation to the diversity that we find in nature itself, and which needs to be protected and celebrated if Creation is to be furthered, as Divinely ordained.

THE SILK ROAD

Among the earliest travellers to bring Christianity to Asia were Nestorian monks and traders who journeyed far into Asia to exchange goods. These goods were not only objects of commerce: they were also linked to the exchange of ideas and technologies. The trade route that linked the cultures of the East to Europe has been called the ‘Silk Road’. But it was not only silk, or other precious fabrics that were transported on these routes, but also objects of art, and philosophical ideas. In return, Eastern potentates valued the scientific discoveries of Western intellectuals, along with cultural gifts which were linked to the Christian Faith. Jesuits brought images of Jesus and the Madonna, or beautifully illustrated books which were prized by Eastern aesthetes, but also seekers for spiritual wisdom.

Among the earliest travellers to bring Christianity to Asia were Nestorian monks and traders who journeyed far into Asia to exchange goods. These goods were not only objects of commerce: they were also linked to the exchange of ideas and technologies. The trade route that linked the cultures of the East to Europe has been called the ‘Silk Road’. But it was not only silk, or other precious fabrics that were transported on these routes, but also objects of art, and philosophical ideas. In return, Eastern potentates valued the scientific discoveries of Western intellectuals, along with cultural gifts which were linked to the Christian Faith. Jesuits brought images of Jesus and the Madonna, or beautifully illustrated books which were prized by Eastern aesthetes, but also seekers for spiritual wisdom.

IMAGE OF MARY in ASIAN ART

The Jesuit mission to Agra at the time of Akbar brought copies of Jesus and the Madonna to the Mogul court. A copy of the “Borghese Madonna” of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, created much interest, and many came to see but also worship before these images, including Akbar himself. Interest in the figure of Mary is a special feature of Catholic art in Asia, arousing interest among those who have a devotion to the feminine aspect of Divinity.
In China, Japan and also the Philippines the popular image of ‘Kuan Yin’ (or Guanyin, also known a Kannon in Japan) has been related to that of Mary. On occasion those who were in danger of persecution because of their Christian belief substituted for Mary an image close to the Buddhist Kuan Yin as a way of disguising their Faith. In this connection it is interesting that the modern Indian Christian artist Angelo da Fonseca often represented Mary in his paintings. He became famous after he painted an image of Mary wearing a sari, which was published in a popular Catholic paper, and seen by the Jesuit Fr. Heras in Bombay, who subsequently became a patron of Angelo da Fonseca and his art. This tendency to represent Mary in an inculturated form is an important feature of Catholic art in Asia.

Jesuit mission to Agra at the time of Akbar brought copies of Jesus and the Madonna to the Mogul court. A copy of the “Borghese Madonna” of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, created much interest, and many came to see but also worship before these images, including Akbar himself. Interest in the figure of Mary is a special feature of Catholic art in Asia, arousing interest among those who have a devotion to the feminine aspect of Divinity.
In China, Japan and also the Philippines the popular image of ‘Kuan Yin’ (or Guanyin, also known a Kannon in Japan) has been related to that of Mary. On occasion those who were in danger of persecution because of their Christian belief substituted for Mary an image close to the Buddhist Kuan Yin as a way of disguising their Faith. In this connection it is interesting that the modern Indian Christian artist Angelo da Fonseca often represented Mary in his paintings. He became famous after he painted an image of Mary wearing a sari, which was published in a popular Catholic paper, and seen by the Jesuit Fr. Heras in Bombay, who subsequently became a patron of Angelo da Fonseca and his art. This tendency to represent Mary in an inculturated form is an important feature of Catholic art in Asia.

Mapping the Asian Continents

Underlying this overlapping of Buddhist iconography and Christian images would be the early links drawn by Nestorian Christians between the message of compassion of the Lord Buddha, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Trading communities in the little state of Sogdiana between the rivers of Amu Darya and Syr Darya, whose capital was Samarkhand, on the Silk Route, seem to have been often followers of a form of Christian Faith which came to be known as the Church of Light. Between the seventh and eleventh centuries of our Common Era, missionaries were sent from the Persian Church to the Far East, reaching as far as the Great Wall of China. An engraved limestone Stele was unearthed in the late Ming Dynasty (between 1623 and 1625) and was subsequently studied by the Jesuit Alvaro Semedo. It appears that this monument was originally erected around 781 CE during the Tang Dynasty, and concerns the teaching of a Persian monk called the Venerable Alopen, who left behind “Twenty seven standard books. These set forth the great conversion for the deliverance of the soul”.
This early introduction of Christian mystical thought into China was of interest to the Jesuits Mission founded by Matteo Riccci (born 1552)who played a significant role in creating links between the Catholic Church and Chinese culture.He received an invitation of the governor of Zhaoqing, who was keen to learn from Ricci about his knowledge of mathematics, and the making of maps.

Underlying this overlapping of Buddhist iconography and Christian images would be the early links drawn by Nestorian Christians between the message of compassion of the Lord Buddha, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Trading communities in the little state of Sogdiana between the rivers of Amu Darya and Syr Darya, whose capital was Samarkhand, on the Silk Route, seem to have been often followers of a form of Christian Faith which came to be known as the Church of Light. Between the seventh and eleventh centuries of our Common Era, missionaries were sent from the Persian Church to the Far East, reaching as far as the Great Wall of China. An engraved limestone Stele was unearthed in the late Ming Dynasty (between 1623 and 1625) and was subsequently studied by the Jesuit Alvaro Semedo. It appears that this monument was originally erected around 781 CE during the Tang Dynasty, and concerns the teaching of a Persian monk called the Venerable Alopen, who left behind “Twenty seven standard books. These set forth the great conversion for the deliverance of the soul”.
This early introduction of Christian mystical thought into China was of interest to the Jesuits Mission founded by Matteo Riccci (born 1552)who played a significant role in creating links between the Catholic Church and Chinese culture.He received an invitation of the governor of Zhaoqing, who was keen to learn from Ricci about his knowledge of mathematics, and the making of maps.

PILGRIM JESUS

Cartography, or the art of making of maps, was a vital science that was to lead to our present understanding of a global world. Some would argue that the journey of Christianity towards the Far East has only just begun. In a post colonial world this journey must be undertaken by pilgrims rather than by soldiers or traders. It has to be respectful of ancient holy sites. One sees in the art of a number of Asian Christians the image of Jesus walking on the roads that lead East. This Jesus accompanies a pilgrim Church, in the way that the Risen Christ walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Christians have often felt confused, or even exiled. Another favourite theme of Oriental art is the journey of the Holy Family escaping with the baby Jesus into exile. The Jesus who has appealed to the imagination of Asian artists, is often a mendicant holy man, like the wandering monk, or Sanyassi. He is not a “conquisitor”—a European imperialist. Rather he reveals a way of Light, that is also a path to liberation

Cartography, or the art of making of maps, was a vital science that was to lead to our present understanding of a global world. Some would argue that the journey of Christianity towards the Far East has only just begun. In a post colonial world this journey must be undertaken by pilgrims rather than by soldiers or traders. It has to be respectful of ancient holy sites. One sees in the art of a number of Asian Christians the image of Jesus walking on the roads that lead East. This Jesus accompanies a pilgrim Church, in the way that the Risen Christ walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Christians have often felt confused, or even exiled. Another favourite theme of Oriental art is the journey of the Holy Family escaping with the baby Jesus into exile. The Jesus who has appealed to the imagination of Asian artists, is often a mendicant holy man, like the wandering monk, or Sanyassi. He is not a “conquisitor”—a European imperialist. Rather he reveals a way of Light, that is also a path to liberation

Dalit and Adivasi communities.

Marginalized communities in Asia, such as Dalits, or oppressed people in India, or Tribal groups, having a distinctive culture of their own, have often chosen to become Christian. This new Faith has offered the opportunity to primal peoples, often ignored or exploited by the great civilizations that have emerged in Asia, to re-define their cultural identity. In this way the Christian art of Asia has stressed the need to discover the roots of culture in ancient folk cultures. The figure of Christ appears as a re-affirmation of that Primordial Person, embodying the essence of what it is to be human. Jesus said “before Abraham was, I am”. This figure of the ‘aboriginal’ humanity that goes beyond civilizations, affirming the link between culture and nature, has given rise to an eco-theology that also returns to a cosmic vision. Jesus is the New Adam, who embodies the Divine Presence in the whole of Creation.
Christian art in Asia has been part of an effort to understand both the diversity of cultural and religious traditions of Asia, and also the need to liberate humanity from the burden of poverty and disease. The future of this art lies in its message of freedom, but also respect for the Other.

Mission and "Inculturation"

From a Hindu point of view the way “inculturation” has been understood in the light of the Mission of the Church, has been problematic. If we mean by “inculturation” only the local Church’s assimilation, or accommodation of certain symbols that belong properly to other cultures and religions, in order to make the Christian Faith more understandable and acceptable to those who are outside the Christian world, then people of other Faiths feel that this is a wrong appropriation of their symbols. However, there have been Christians like Dom Bede Griffiths, Swami Abhishiktananda and others, who did not want to use Hindu or Buddhist symbols in this way. For them Hinduism, Buddhism, and other spiritual traditions in India have much to contribute to the future of the Church in Asia. This Church will not be a copy of the European or Western one. Rather it would be a new way of understanding the spirituality that we find in the Gospel of Jesus. The Light that we are all seeking, is also the Light which we share with people of Other Faiths

From a Hindu point of view the way “inculturation” has been understood in the light of the Mission of the Church, has been problematic. If we mean by “inculturation” only the local Church’s assimilation, or accommodation of certain symbols that belong properly to other cultures and religions, in order to make the Christian Faith more understandable and acceptable to those who are outside the Christian world, then people of other Faiths feel that this is a wrong appropriation of their symbols. However, there have been Christians like Dom Bede Griffiths, Swami Abhishiktananda and others, who did not want to use Hindu or Buddhist symbols in this way. For them Hinduism, Buddhism, and other spiritual traditions in India have much to contribute to the future of the Church in Asia. This Church will not be a copy of the European or Western one. Rather it would be a new way of understanding the spirituality that we find in the Gospel of Jesus. The Light that we are all seeking, is also the Light which we share with people of Other Faiths

"INCULTURATION"

‘ Inculturation’ as a concept, has very much concerned me. The idea that the Light of the Resurrection must enter into every culture is not just a question of using other cultures as a kind of sugar coating, so that Christian teachings can be inserted into a non-Christian world. Rather it is insights that come from other Religious traditions (I have talked about Buddhism, but not specifically mentioned Hinduism) which can enrich, and help widen the horizons of Christian art for the future. This two-way process, through art and the religious imagination, is for me hugely important. The image for example of the Nataraja, or God as a dancer, can be a new dimension to Christian iconography, as I have many times discussed. But this is often seen as simply "syncretism" or "relativism" which is just now a real problem for the Catholic Church. Efforts to link the life of the Church in Asia to systems of thought and meditattion that we find in Yoga, or Zen Buddhism have often not been favoured by the official Christian hierarchy.

The COSMIC CROSS

In the Far Eastern Christian tradition, the Cross is a cosmic sign, and is related to the waters of life, and the Tree which is the axis of the universe, encircled by fire.

The Cross of Light.

The image of the “Cross of Light” which is a non-figured Cross, relates I feel to an approach to Christian iconography in Asia that has a cosmic dimension. The Cross of Light, which is the Cross that the emperor Constantine saw in a vision before he decided to become a Christian, is a cosmic sign, which the early Church understood as being the inner mystical significance of the cross on which Jesus died. This Cross relates to the Buddhist understanding of the Mandala, and can be understood in the context of what might be termed the “Yoga of Christ”.
During the first thousand years from around four hundred to fourteen hundred of our common era the Nestorian Church of Persia sent out missionaries who reached as far as China. As mentioned earlier, the Venerable Alopen, left behind “Twenty seven standard books. These set forth the great conversion for the deliverance of the soul”. The Nestorians believe that there is a profound link between the teachings of Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus about this inner path to enlightenment. The “way of Light” could be understood as an inner journey to self realization.
In India we have the Syrian Christian Church, which has an extremely complex history of Church architecture and objects like standing crosses, lamps, and so forth. The fact is that the Nestorians were declared heretical by the Catholic Church, and part of the reason why they had this mission to the Far East, was precisely because they were pushed out from the Western Church. Also their idea that there was a link between Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Christian doctrines, was considered syncretistic from a Roman Catholic position, and therefore dangerous. The whole debate about what was heretical about the Nestorians, and what was the real issue concerning he natures of Jesus both human and Divine, is now much debated. The idea of a cross which is abstract, that is to say has no human figure on it, relates to an Apophatic mystical tradition which insists that God is beyond the human imagination, and cannot be represented. We can only speak of this Divine dimension through symbols which are pointers to an Uncreated Light which has the power to transform our lives. The great standing crosses that we find outside Syrian Christian Churches are supposed to represent the Axis of the Universe, but also a ray of the Divine Light which enters into the world.

Empire and inculturation

The concept of empire, was applied to a religious imagination of Heavenly rule, reaching out to all peoples. This was the basic impulse behind a belief in Mission, not just as a process of subjugating or controlling by a centralized authority, but rather as a crossing over boundaries.
However, this sense of Mission was often used by the colonial ambitions of European nations that wanted to control trade routes vital to the evolving economic growth of Western states. Christian forms of art that had evolved over the centuries in Europe were taken to Asia, as examples of what all Christian art should be like. Thus Jesus and the Saints were represented as typically European figures, taking no notice of the fact that Asian Christians had a very different cultural history, life style, and sense of identity. European forms of architecture, liturgy, music, and even language, were transported abroad to Asian lands.
The Second Vatican Council provided a new theological basis for what was termed a process of “inculturating” the Church into local cultures in the non-Western world. This process was understood as a way of incarnating the Divine Word into another cultural context, by using local forms to embody what was understood as being the Universal principles underlying the Gospel. This valuing of cultures other than what characterizes European civilization, led also to the translating of the Bible into many other languages. The process of translation cannot simply be a literal one. Words, like images, carry their own ambience of meanings, and symbolic over-tones, which draw on the memory, and mytho-poetic world from which cultures have emerged.

A Prophetic Faith.

The Judeo-Christian or ‘Abrahamic’ Faith, arose from a prophetic interrogation of spiritual traditions. Fundamental to a Faith that reaches beyond the local, is a belief in the Universal as incarnated into the particular and historical. In this context the diversity of cultures, like the diversity which characterizes nature itself, has to be celebrated as a God-given richness, pointing to an ultimate unity beyond differences.

The Prophetic critique of “false images” which was often used to reject the images of other cultures, was originally an effort to recognize that all images, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, are human images, and are therefore inadequate to express that Truth which lies beyond name and form. This Apophatic rejection of what is understood as idolatry, applies to the human tendency to define and contain a Reality that transcends our human imagination.

ASIAN CHRISTIAN ART

Ancient settled economies based on fertile lands, irrigated by river systems, gave rise to social structures that were highly centralized, and hierarchical. Gradually these agrarian cultures developed systems of commerce whose focus was newly emerging cities. Kingdoms extended rule over surrounding scattered communities on the fringes of established empires.
These empires evolved systems of communication, which incorporated ancient nomadic routes that linked cultures within a larger all embracing unity. This unity became civilizations, which were increasingly defined in terms of Religions with distinctive myths and images .
Trade routes function in several ways. Originally the way migrant peoples crossed the landscape, these routes were travelled by pilgrims, helping in the process of regional integration. They were also the way conquering armies extended their sphere of influence.

Angels and the cosmos of Faiths.doc

ANGELS AND THE SPIRITUAL IN ABSTRACT ART.

 

A word of explanation.

 

The theme of angels in relation to the Buddhist-Hindu concept of Yakshas, or spirits of the vegetation, has been associated with New Age movements like the one that evolved at Findhorn.  I have personally found the ideas of the theologian Margaret Barker and what she has to say about “Temple theology” very interesting. The basis of her Temple theology is summed up in the following way: “Temple theology traces the roots of Christian theology back into the first Temple, destroyed by the cultural revolution in the time of King Josiah at the end of the seventh century BCE.”

Personally I am very interested in Sacred Space, and how concepts of space have informed the spiritual art  both in the Celtic and Syrian Christian tradition which we find in South India. The image of the Temple space has played an important part in imagining the relation of Heaven to Earth.  The Temple is a microcosm, and this becomes itself an image of the “Heavenly Hierarchies”, which we find described in great detail by theologians like the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as “Pseudo-Denys”, who was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century. His great work on the ‘Heavenly Hierarchies’, and also on the ‘Names of God’, provided the middle ages with a basis for many of the masterpieces of Gothic art, like at Chartres. But he was also a theologian who laid the foundation for an ‘apophatic’ spirituality, that is a recognition that God ultimately is beyond all names and forms, and that the images we create are only our effort to embody an intuition of reality which is outside the domain of rational and discursive thought.

It is in this sense also that I would like to understand the angelic world as essentially abstract, or what in India is known as “Nirguna”. It was this intuition that was reinforced in my mind when I was asked to attend a small workshop of seven artists, brought together in the locality of Chorin, which is about 50 km from Berlin towards the Polish border. There, near an ancient Cistercian monastery which was founded about a thousand years ago, we were asked to give expression to our image of the ‘spirit of the place’. These pictures were later exhibited at this archaeological and tourist site.. The present ruins of the Chorin Monastery is a popular tourist attraction, and many concerts are held in the restored Church building which is itself like a musical instrument, in that it has wonderful acoustic richness. This brick built Gothic architecture became a model for a German understanding of its ancient Gothic style, which inspired a romantic idea of the ruin as a symbol of a spirituality rooted in the landscape.

While in Chorin I was shown a book containing many of the prints which Paul Klee made around the theme of the Angel. Important for him also was the image of the ‘Angel of Death.’  The following images are only an introduction to what could be expanded as an approach to the image of the Angel that points to the future of our planet earth.  It is in this sense I have also tried to represent the ‘Angel of Ecology’.

 

Elijah:- "The Sun of Righteousness" (The Light of the world) shall arise with healing in His Wings, just before the Last-Day (Sura 43:61). Malachi ch. 4

 

An important aspect of the iconography related to Angels, is the symbolic importance of wings and flight. This includes both the idea of crossing boundaries, but also light, as the ancient image of the sun that we find in Egyptian art is of the Sun with wings which represent the rays of light. In the series of drawings which I did for the book of reflections written by Dr. Eric Lott on the healing works of Jesus, which he entitled “Healing Wings”,I used the image of the white goose, or swan known in India as the Hamsa, which is also related to the spirit, and to light (the Hamsa is nearly always shown as the finial of the Indian standing lamp.) The white wild swan is also very important in the Celtic tradition, and some have referred to the Angel as having “Wings of Desire” (for example the film by Wim Wenders, in the English version of the “Angel over Berlin”.)

In the art of the East, mythical birds like the Phoenix, or the Garuda, or Simurgh in the Persian Sufi parable, the winged creature is not only a messenger, but also a spirit that longs for the limitless, and searches beyond the bounds of human knowledge.  It is this search for the Truth that crosses over cultural differences, which I feel is an important aspect of our present interest in the primal figure of the Angel.

 

 

Angels and the cosmos of Faiths.

 

 

 I have been looking at the book on Angels by Jane Williams (2006). Introducing the subject of Angels, she writes : “Angels feature in all religious traditions, and people of different ages and different faiths or no faith at all have encountered them”. In Germany I found that many people are interested in Angels, perhaps because there is a kind of mythical element in angels, and they seem closer to our world than "God" which seems so abstract. In fact I think in the ‘Kabala’ it was thought that it was the Angels, rather like Wisdom, that represented the energies of God, working in nature. It was an Angel that was present in the Burning Bush, for example. It would be interested to know what Theologians  think about the significance of Angels for today. In India, I have been in contact with a theologian who has interpreted the Book of Revelations in the light of political movements in a country facing Justice as well as ecological problems.  What is important about our concept of the Angel, is that these spiritual Beings  are inter-faith, representing a deep need in all cultures to respect the Spiritual powers and principalities that guide our political decisions. Angels have a very important place in the Islamic tradition, and we also find similar Beings in  Hindu and Buddhist myths and legends. We can find a deep sense of angelic presences in the primal world of folk traditions.

Personally I have always had a devotion to Angels, and it is this angelic world that helps  me as a Christian,  in my encounter with those spiritual forces and symbols that mean so much to me in other religions. I feel that an understanding of the angelic can help us approach inter religious dialogue in an intuitive, and spiritual way. Angels are messengers, and in that sense they cross boundaries, reaching out to all cultures, and peoples. It is in this sense that angelic beings have featured in many of my own paintings. I would like to introduce some of these images, and what gave rise to them in the following brief reflections.

 

1. Dance in the Furnace.

This picture represent the “Fiery Furnace” that I find an evocative image. Perhaps the Furnace could relate to culture as a whole. Here, in a Mandala form, I thought of  the movements of the body that are part of a series of gestures that are known as the ‘Surya Namashkar’, or greeting to the morning sun. This cycle of yogic postures are   linked to the forms that we can find also in classical Indian dance movements. Traditionally the angels are thought to be spirits that continually dance before the Creator, in an eternal circle dance of light and joy.  One could almost call this dance the ‘Yoga of the Angels’. In that sense the Angels represent the energies of God, and reflect the Divine Presence within creation.

 

2. Three Angels

The series of Angel figures that I  worked on when I was in Germany, thinking about the ‘Spirit of the Place’ in the ancient  ruin of the Cistercian abbey at Chorin, developed the idea that there is an angelic presence in a  Holy Place. I have been very much impressed by the idea of the “Angel of History” that the German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin  spoke of, and which the artist Paul Klee tried to represent. So I decided to think about the Angel-presence in  this ruined historic building, which was first constructed by monks from Citeaux, who had been invited to come to these “Marches of the Dukes of Brandenburg”, to start agriculture in a wild and forested area. In this image I was thinking of the three angels who came to visit Sarah and Abraham, and camped under the sacred oaks of ‘Mamre’. I used the architectural forms of the brick Minster, where we find a whole series of windows, that have intricate Mandala patterns   made from local clay, and then fired. The Mandala form of the window represents the open heart of the angelic presence, which symbolizes the Trinity that is both the unity, and diversity to be found in nature.

3. Angel with Elijah

This is another picture of mine which was  done in the early  nineties, and was originally planned as a Tabernacle setting. Elijah, we are told, (1 Kings 19:5-9a) was deeply  despondent, and in his sleep an angel appeared and laid a vessel of water beside him, along with some scones for him to eat, and then in the strength of that food he walked for forty nights and days until he reached Horeb, and there in a cave he heard the still small voice (I Kings 19:9b-16). That is a theme I have repeatedly returned to, as the image of the cave, as a place of receiving inspiration is close to the Indian tradition where we hear of the "Cave of the Heart". I have wondered if the angelic energies could also be related to moods which we have, which I feel can be transformed into ‘feelings for God.’ Monks in the desert often felt profound moods like depression, sorrow or anger.  These moods are not just human impulses, but come to us through the whole of nature, and represent a deep connection which we have with the seasons, and the way in which nature also passes through different modes.In Indian aesthetics these are called Rasas, or essences, which inform our imaginative response to our human condition in this world.  In fact one could even relate this to the different musical forms, that also evoke feelings which can be either joyful, or dark and despairing.

 

4. The Angel of vegetation

Over the last twenty years I have been particularly interested in what I have called ‘Primal Faith systems’, such as we find in the tribal cultures of India. I have been very much impressed by such powerful images that we see in pre-historic art forms, like in the caves of ‘Edakkal’ that are in the Wyanad district of South India, in North Kerala. These figures remind one of tribal art forms that we see among the Saora tribes of the East of India, or the Warli art of the West coast. I have made many sketches of these figures and from these sketches which are quite abstract, I created a series of Angel forms that  represent for me the ‘Bhutas’, or spirits of the Earth, which tribal peoples in India believe in. These figures are like guardians of the vegetation, and later came into Buddhist art as the ‘Yakshas’, or presences that inhabit the sacred grove.

 

 

5.  The Angel of Fire.

This image is part of the triptych of Angels that represent the Elements. It is similar in a way to the work I did on the Angel in the fiery furnace which we find in the book of Daniel, into which the three youths were thrown by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. (The fiery furnace is a passage from the Book of Daniel (chapter 3). In a sense one could say that the Vedic gods like ‘Agni’ (the god of fire)  were angelic forces, that are not only physical phenomena, but are deeply numinous presences. This was the idea of Owen Barfield in his book ‘Poetic Diction’, which was to very much influence people like C.S. Lewis and Tolkein. Dom. Bede Griffiths also refers to this in his book on the ‘Marriage of East and West’.

 

 

6.  The Angel of water.

The Angel represented here is like the angel that we are told stirred the waters of the sacred pool of Bethesda which was associated with healing. There are many accounts of angels who are healing energies or energies of life present in water, especially wells or springs. I tried to show that this angel comes out of the stirring of water, rather like the installation by Bill Viola which was entitled : Five Angels for the Millennium, exhibited at the Tate Modern.

 

7.  Apocalyptic angel

I have often wanted to paint a series of pictures on the book of the Apocalypse. In fact another series of Angels which I did was on the Angels of the Churches which  Mary Lewis has in her home at Welsh Poole.  This image is rather like a ‘Thankha’ tapestry with the angelic Person who could also be called the “Son of Man”, a term that is applied to Jesus.  Muslims also have a whole very complex idea of Angel beings, some of whom are also thought to be satanic. This was probably because they were drawn from ancient tribal cosmologies, thought to be at variance with an Abrahamic faith in the One God. This picture was originally intended for a poster which was used during Advent.

 

 

8.  The Angels of the storm

Deborah, one of the prophetesses of Israel sings a song of deliverance (Judges 5). Verses 3-11 link the giving of the Law at Sinai with the deliverance of the Israelites from the Canaanites. At Sinai, God made a covenant with Israel. But in the song of Deborah this deliverance is represented as a Cosmic event. The “stars” joined in the fight, doing battle against Sisera. Torrential rains turned the river Kishon into a raging flood.

They fought from heaven,

The stars in their courses.......

But they that love Him

Be as the sun going forth in its might.

I was very struck by a book written by Martin Buber on the Old Testament, where he discusses this ancient hymn of Deborah. As far as I can remember Buber links this hymn of deliverance to a psalm which speaks of the Lord riding on the Storm clouds. Of course it is an almost terrifying image of the God of Hosts, who does battle.  In Psalm 18  we read :” He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind”. It is this cosmic vision that underlies the way in which the Angels are represented in the Bible, I feel. And it is that cosmic vision of primordial forces that comes close to the myths that are so important in the Indian tradition.

Here this angel of the storm is above the holy mountain Shiva Ganga not far from where we live--perhaps you visited it. The gods of the storm are called the Maruths in India, and the image of the storm is very important in Indian thought, related I feel to the onset of the Monsoons.

 

 

 

9.  A Trinity design for window.

This design was turned down, because the Tribal ‘Bhils’, for whom it was made, said it reminded them of the ‘Bhuthas’, or ghosts of the forest that they had left behind them when they became Christian. Eventually this cartoon was bought by a Canadian called Klaus Klostermaier who teaches comparative religions. I do feel that it is important that when visualizing the image of the Angel the figure is not just sweet and pretty. For me that is often what is most dissatisfying in the Angels that the Pre-Raphaelites like Burne Jones painted. The angels were awesome, and could inspire dread.

This does lead us to the question of ambiguity in the Angelic Beings. Lucifer, who carried the light, was also the source of darkness and evil. In Indian mythology we have the Asuras as opposed to the Devas--both represent elements of the divine energies present in Creation. By simply discounting the dark forces that we experience in the world around us, like rejecting the negative feelings we experience in anger or despair, we risk turning the world of the Angels into something that has no depth, and becomes only decorative.

 

 

10.  Three Angels as Trimurthy

Going back to the Abbe Jules Monchanin, who was the first to found ‘Shantivanam Ashram’ as the “Sat Chit Ananda Ashram” dedicated to the Trinity, there has been an effort among Indian theologians to relate the concept of Trimurthy, which is particularly important in the Shaivite tradition, to the Christian understanding of Trinity. Monchanin spoke of India as being the land of the Trinity. Raimondo Panikkar wrote an important essay on the Trinity in the World Religions.  Dom Bede Griffiths introduced me to this concept, and as a result I painted many images of the Trinity as Trimurthy over the years.

This picture is perhaps one of the first attempts I made, when I was with Dom Bede Griffiths in ‘Kurisumala Ashram’ in Kerala.The figures of Abraham
and Sarah are dressed in the Syrian Christian tradition.

 

 

11.  The Angel of the forest.

This was done two years ago in Chorin, and represented the crucified angel in the primal forest. In a way this is like a Primal Person in the forest, who could also be a crucified Angel, like the one that St.Francis of Assisi had a vision of at Alverno,, and from whom he received the Stigmata. The Indian concept of the Primal Person or Adi Purusha, could be related to the Angel. Often a human being can be seen as an Angel, as St. Benedict suggests in his Rule for monks, where he says that we should offer hospitality to everyone, because on many occasions those whom we entertain, may in fact be angels in disguise. The line between the human and the angelic is not clear. In fact we can suggest that the Angelic Presence is where the human meets and interacts with the whole of Creation.

 

 

12.  The Angel of fire.

This  image of the Angel in the flames, was related to the red bricks of the Church which were fired by the monks using the trees which they cleared in order to do agriculture, and the very rich clay which is in that place, related to the ancient lakes that go back to the ice age.  I think what I was particularly thinking of was the sacred place as almost an oven, or place where matter is being transformed. In the past I have done a number of pictures on the angelic persence that was in the great fire which was constructed to consume the three youths Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3). I found that a story explaining the origin of the Indian ritual of ‘Arathi’, or the waving of  a lamp before the mystery of the Divine darkness, also spoke of the Divine Presence which was sensed by the three great mystics of the Vaishnavite tradition who are known as the Alvars. This mystery of the fourth Being, which is the Divine presence who comes to join those who are his true believers, is perhaps behind the idea that where “two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.” This idea of the Angel that is present in the community of believers, could also explain the “Angels of the Chrurch’s” which we find described in the Book of Revelations.(Revelation 1:11)

 

 

13.  Angels of the past.

As I mentioned earlier, the idea of Walter Benjamin concerning the “Angel of History” which looks both forward and backwards, has inspired me. According to Walter Benjamin, “This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.” It is this vision of history as determined by angelic forces that the artist Paul Klee represented in his 1920 painting Angelus Novus.

Here in this picture of mine,  I wanted to represent the presences that I felt particularly in the inner space of the ruined monastic Minster at Chorin. Here I felt that the angels were almost like the spirits of the ancient monks who had chanted there. In a way the monastic tradition arose from an idea that to be a contemplative monk was like living the angelic life here on earth. The angels are contemplative presences around the throne of God. They are always overshadowing, so to say, the Holy place, as in the Temple that Solomon built, where angels were represented as enclosing, or covering the Tabernacle, or the place of reconciliation between God an the human community. The Holy of Holies is the place of the Angelic presences.

 

 

14. Angel of Ecology.

 

This is another of the series of Angels that I worked on in Chorin.
There were many lakes in that area, and the place has become very much concerned with ecology. So I thought of a kind of green man who is also an angel. Here the heart of the angel is related to the waters.  I also related the idea of the angel to the ruin. Owen Barfield in his book on ‘Poetic Diction’ devotes a whole section to the Ruin. He says that the word derives from an ancient root which means something flowing like water, that is constantly in a state of flux, and changing. Earlier,  I had done angels related to the elements. In fact I had thought that one could see the three angels Gabriele, Raphael and Michael as very close to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The Angels in the Biblical tradition were ancient Canaanite gods who were absorbed into the mythic world of the Hebrew peoples.

 

 

 

15.  Angel of the Landscape.

I have represented Angels as part of my interest in the landscape. In the image of the three Angels as part of an Indian landscape, with a Banyan tree, and again a mountain from which is flowing a stream of water, I was thinking of the whole landscape as filled in a way with angelic forms. I suppose that some people might feel that this is an almost pantheistic way of understanding the angelic as the inner spiritual dimension of nature. But as I have tried to suggest, what I am hoping to express through my art is what some theologians have called a ‘panentheism’ which is also a Cosmic world view that goes beyond nature as we experience it around us, to encompass a universal vision that includes the whole of creation as being in a way the “Body of God.”