Image of the Week: Moon Temple
© D. Yael Bernhard
There's something liberating about restrictions in art. Limitations in color or form enable you to fully explore whatever colors or forms you choose to work with. Brown, yellow, black, and the white of the paper were the only colors I allowed myself in this painting – and if you look carefully, you'll see the brown and yellow never touch any white. That was the law I established in this imaginary world – this temple of my imagination made entirely of arches.
The arches are varied in terms of size, shape, and orientation – but their patterns (also limited) repeat, like visual rhythms, and they nest snugly inside each other. The direction of these stacked arches creates the central column, flanked by three fields on either side – a total of seven, the number of mystery and intrigue, crowned by a full moon. The central column could be the aisle of a temple, a passage between heaven and earth, or a birth canal.
Concentric curves were a common theme in prehistoric art. I had discovered a wonderful book at the time, The Language of the Goddess, by a Lithuanian archeologist named Marija Gimbutas, with an excellent forward by Joseph Campbell. Earthy and inspiring, the book had a passing influence on my art. All it took was a few concentric lines etched into a carved goddess to get me going. There was energy in those lines, as if they set up a vibration.
I was eight months pregnant with my second child when Moon Temple was completed in July of 1991. This image of manifold fullness flowed out of me easily, rich and dense as the food I was craving. I also did a charcoal drawing of the same concept, on buff-colored paper. I remember thinking I would paint a much bigger, final version of it someday – when my kids were older and I had more free time.
Now my three children are all grown, and I grew past my infatuation with prehistoric art long ago. Not that I don't love arches anymore – I do. Maybe I'll paint that larger moon temple someday. But I've evolved in a different direction, and I can't go backwards in time as an artist any more than I can as a parent. Many people want to restore what was lost in those long-ago times – the ancient matriarchal hunter-gatherer societies that gave way to complex, patriarchal civilizations based on agriculture. Those old ways could cycle around again, but they won't be the same – just like the spirals on those primitive idols. Spirals are cyclical, but never quite repeat. A spiral gets larger or smaller with each revolution, depending on how you look at it. I did quite a few spiral compositions back in the day, too.
Moon Temple is acrylic on paper, and measures about 22"x30". Ironically, it hangs at a place called Full Moon Resort in Oliverea, NY, ten minutes from my home, along with about twenty-five other older works. I'll feature another painting from this collection next week.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard