Prologue
Mark W. McGinnis & Hindu Quintych, 1998
This series of essays and paintings is an attempt to explore some of the world’s religions from the perspective of an artist. When I look at religious structures, I view them as attempts to form order out of the parts of our existence and create a sense of purpose and direction in our lives.
My motivation in creating this series is primarily self-education and the need I feel to find more meaning and direction in my own life. In the post-industrial world the true guidance of religion has been largely supplanted by economic designs that may or may not pay lip service to religion. Most of our lives are guided down a path of consumption and careers that form the purpose of our lives. It is my intent in these essays and paintings to study alternative ways of designing our relationships from many cultural sources.
The content of the essays focus on the foundation history of the religions and the basic moral and ethical teachings of the faith. It is not my intent to investigate the many variations, factions, and directions that these basic religions have spawned over the centuries.
The series includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, the Dreaming Religion of Aboriginal Australia, Hopi Religion, Ifa Divination of the Yoruba of West Africa, and Inuit Spiritualism. The Designs of Faith Project was begun in 1992 and completed in 1998.
My research approach to each religion begins with reading the basic religious writings of the faith if they are available. I then read a sampling of both the scholarly and spiritual writings on the religion as well. After taking extensive notes, the framework of the essay evolves in my mind and the writing begins. Early drafts of the essay are reviewed by two individuals who have been my valued friends and critics for many years, Tom Hansen and Legia Spicer.
The completed essay and research experience form the beginning of the visual inspiration for the canvas. Additional research is done on the artistic tradition of the faith, stimulating many possible solutions on how to express my ideas in the language of design. I then execute an initial 19 ” X 16 ” watercolor study, working on five separate pieces of paper to prepare myself for the five section quintych canvas. A second study of the same size is sometimes produced, working out the various inadequacies and problems of the first. I then move on to the production of the 92” X 79” five sectioned canvas. In the public presentation of the canvas, a statement of symbolism and sources is included to give interested viewers information on the evolution of the imagery of the quintych.
I would like to be clear in that I, in no way, see this study as being definitive. Each of the religions covered in the essays and paintings is tremendously complex with an abundance of variations that have grown from the foundation. People approach these religions from many different perspectives and for many different reasons. Their experiences are certainly no less valid than mine.
Mark W. McGinnis
1998
Judaism Quintych
Judaism Quintych Watercolor Study
SYMBOLISM & SOURCES
It is not by accident that Judaism has a limited history in the visual arts. The second commandment Moses issued after descending from Mount Sinai was, “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” This prohibition created a strict regulation that has been closely followed throughout the 4,000-year history of the Jews. Instead of the visual arts, the Jews concentrated their creative efforts on the literary arts where their contributions have been tremendous. When they have felt some need for visual expression through the ages, they usually borrowed the style from the culture they were within at the time. The exception to this being in modern times when a few of the many great Jewish modern artists such as Marc Chagal, Ben Shawn, Jack Levine, and Jacques Lipchitz have expressed Jewish themes. This minimal amount of visual stimuli has led me to take a different approach to the iconography of this quintych. Rather than drawing on the visual heritage of the religion for inspiration, I have attempted to draw upon the literary heritage.
CENTER SECTION
At the top of this section are the ultimate words of Judaism, the Shema. Written in Hebrew, it reads from right to left, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One!” This is the creed of Judaism and the underlying basis of the faith.
The standing male figure is Adam before the breath of life has entered him, still in the clay from which God has formed him. My decision to make Adam the focal point of the composition grew from the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. He has put forth the idea that the only possible symbol for God is man, as we are created in his image. Heschel believes that this produces not simply a visual linkage but also a responsibility, in that human beings, in their divine likeness, deserve respect and care, “An act of violence [toward man] is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God” (234). He goes on to say “…man is described as having been formed out of the dust of the earth. Together image and dust express the polarity of man. He is formed of the most inferior stuff in the most superior image…” (235).
The question in creating the quintych was, what is the superior image of man and God? The menu to select from is vast, spanning the diverse imagery of man created by the world’s cultures. My selection was the depiction of man by fifth century BCE Greeks. There is a brief period between the “severe” and Hellenistic styles where the male form exudes a sense of sublime perfection in my subjective opinion. My Adam is modeled on Warrior A from Riace Marina (Italy). Lying in shipwreck for centuries, it is one of the few over-life-size bronze figures to survive. I have modified the figure to suit my needs but attempted to reproduce at least a part of the beauty of the original. Another appealing aspect of the Greek choice is that it was nearly contemporary with the compiling of Torah and is symbolic of another culture’s image of man in God’s image and man as the dominating force in the world.
BOTTOM SECTION
Adam extends into this section with clay shavings and debris of the sculpting process in a pile at his feet. The Hebrew calligraphy of this section tells part of the story of the creation of Adam:
Then God said: Let us make a being in our image, after our likeness, and let it have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over the cattle; over all the earth and over every creature that crawls upon it. Thus God created us in the divine image, creating us in the image of God, creating us male and female. And God blessed us, and said to us: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over every living thing that movesupon the earth. (Gates 414)
TOP SECTION
The creatures that dominate this section have their origin in the book of Exodus where God gave Moses very detailed instructions for the design of the ark of the covenant, a container for the tablets of the commandments. Among the instructions for embellishments were two cherubim of gold attached to the cover with their wings arching out above and shielding the cover of the ark. The contemporary image of the chubby infant cherub with a bow and arrow extends back to the European eras of the Baroque and Rococo time periods. The cherub of the ancient Near East was a very different winged creature of many diversified animal combinations.
The cherub was a guardian spirit to protect and defend. There had been a long tradition of these creatures in the region with the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians creating a long