Notes from an art museum

I recently got back from a trip to North Carolina, centered on a family wedding. The festivities were grandiose, the bridal couple was young and sexy, and the light was just right for good photos. A day after the wedding I went to the NC Museum of Art, and it was really well stocked. The European wing was especially full of plundered treasure: Rodin sculptures, French impressionist paintings, layered gold Italian triptychs.

And as in many well-rounded art collections, my favorite thing to do was go from the ancient Egyptian wing straight to Medieval Europe, because I can actually see the reconfiguring of myth. In Ancient Egypt there was a goddess Isis who had a son, Horus. Isis had to put her dead husband, Osiris, back together piece by piece, and with his reanimated body she conceived their only child. Here they are, mother and son:

and here, though Horus is mostly gone:

And not long after Christ’s life, these two were repackaged as Madonna and Child, in images and texts. The story of Osiris’s rebirth was easily recast as Christ’s resurrection. Here are Mary and Jesus (wooden statue from medieval France:)

Their facial expressions are the same as Isis and Horus, their positions are very similar, even the feeling around the sculptures was related. How to explain that better…a child in his mother’s lap conjures a specific feeling in an observer—a feeling of goodwill and safety. The myth of Isis and Horus continues today in images of Mary and Jesus—who are well known, highly visible icons—and maybe it’s older than ancient Egypt. “Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?” asked Joseph Cambell, one of my heroes.

Just as interesting were the ancient Mayan statues. Whether or not earlier peoples encountered life from space (and I believe they did), their most sacred statues seem to reflect not human forms, but human plus something else. Larger eyes, smaller mouths, bigger heads. These Mayan figures look like kachinas to me:

I saw a lot of other strange and lovely images at the museum, but with only a smartphone camera and a tired traveling mind, I didn’t take too many photos. I’ll leave you with one from the African arts wing, a beaded spirit headdress (check out the blazing third eye):

(I keep seeing that face in my dreams)