Image of the Week: Black Madonna
© D. Yael Bernhard
My first encounter with the black madonna was in a documentary film about gypsy music. The film, Latcho Drom, traveled all over Europe, as gypsies do, in this particular scene stopping in the south of France. Six musicians entered a cave-like room – or perhaps an actual cave – lit with hundreds of candles. Under the low ceiling a statue of a black madonna stood wrapped in an embroidered shawl. Each man approached her, kissed her affectionately, and whispered to her in what sounded like the old Romani language. Some left flowers and herbs at her feet before sitting down to play. They sat facing the female idol, and played to her as if she were real. Clearly, to these gitans, she was.
I was instantly intrigued. Here was an overlay of Christianity on the old earth-based pagan beliefs that preceded the Church. Clearly, the black madonna impersonated qualities of both the mother of Jesus and the earth mother archetype. With her dark skin and underground altar, she was a physical expression of the feminine mysteries rooted deep in the earth, emerging through the very religion that forbade her. The goddess of old may have been buried, yet her roots burrowed deep, and did not die.
Other theories hold a more pedestrian view of the black madonna: that the idol statues blackened with age merely as the result of being exposed to candle smoke, the effect of oxidation on unstable pigments. There's no proof or disproof of this theory. The lover of mythology in me prefers to believe the dark skin is intentional.
This sort of fusion of old and new religious customs is not unique. In Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe plays a similar role as the black madonna, inculcating a feminine, earth-based wisdom through Christian iconography. The Hindus of Bali wove Indonesian culture into a unique religious blend of their own. The Jews of 19th century England drew upon British decorum in forging Reform Judaism. In West Africa, I met devout Muslims who had never read the Koran, and practiced their religion through traditional drumming, dance, and singing in which Arabic verses were reinvented in the rhythmic style indigenous to the region. Their concept of Allah had been subsumed into their old ancestral beliefs. Religious traditions merge and part, evolving as an expression of the cultures that give rise to them. Only when we look back on them do they seem fixed.
All of this made sense to me, but what I couldn't explain was my own fascination with the black madonna. I'm neither Christian nor pagan, and do not believe in idols. Yet this figure took up residence in my imagination as a deep-rooted mystery. As if by a will of its own, the painting began to gestate.
I was near the end of my childbearing years, and this was one of the last of many paintings I did of pregnant women. The black madonna is the earth herself, giving birth to her opposite – a white-skinned, modern child born of an ancient, primordial mother. Her scarf is the sky, laced with vines and roots. She is a triangle within a square, holding a circle . . . three geometric shapes brought into harmony with warm and cool colors and the organic forms of clouds.
Even now the black madonna continues to haunt me, tugging on some deep, forgotten memory. She becomes more intricate in my mind, perhaps giving birth to animals as well as babies, whole forests, even the ocean. Once she appeared in my dreams as an African woman wearing a shimmering feathered cape. Planted on ebony thighs like tree trunks, the great mother threw her cape open, revealing every creature on earth emerging from her womb, along with spirals of mud and menstrual blood that wove patterns down her legs. This primal image has stayed with me for years, though I've yet to give it the form it deserves.
Last week I gifted The Black Madonna to an herbalist friend in exchange for roots, leaves, extracts, and craniosacral therapy – her unique fusion of healing gifts, which manifest the same compassion and wisdom that emanates from the dark-skinned earth mother. I'm deeply grateful. The black madonna has found a new home in Jen's apothecary, which also has a cave-like feeling. Perhaps she'll lay flowers and herbs in front of the painting. The black madonna lives on.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
children's books • fine art • illustration