Thursday September 16, 2021
My friend Jose posted a picture of drawing he did in the sand on a beach using a piece of driftwood as his implement.
I immediately recognized it as a Cretan labyrinth. This design and variations have been associated with the Isle of Crete since the time of the ancient Greeks because it was said that there was a minotaur on Crete and it was kept in a labyrinth. This based on the remnants of foundations of the palace that remains to this day on the island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth
However, this symbol is found around the world. This was pointed out to me by an article in Smithsonian Magazine some seven or ten years ago. Carl Schuster spent his life collecting samples of folk art and ancient patterns. He showed up at someone’s home with a picture. He asked the person what it was. Obviously it was the Cretan Labyrinth. “No,” said Schuster, “It’s from Northern California.” He proceeded to show the same pattern displayed in Siberia and other places.
What he had discovered with this and many other patterns was that they are universal among mankind.
This is especially true of tattoos. He devotes a whole book to showing arm band tattoo patterns and repeating weave patterns.
What is particularly striking about the Cretan Labyrinth pattern is that it is not only universal as a symbol and work of art, but it is also used as a meditative process. One can draw the labyrinth as one line and not take their pencil off the paper, as Jose no doubt discovered with his piece of driftwood.
The meditative aspect is found in churches and cathedrals throughout Europe with a pattern inscribed in stone on a floor. The idea being that one can walk the path and contemplate. This is the idea behind the garden walkways and labyrinths. Also, the Nasca lines, which have been shown to be used for walking. The thought now is that those large figures were created by various villages living in the valleys near by. They were asking for rain.
The problem came in that the giant trees whose roots ran deep into the valleys’ earth had been cut down and replaced with corn and other short root crops. When the rains came it washed away the crops and eventually the valleys became inhabitable. The populations moved away and the Nasca lines were abandoned.
Schuster’s collection of some 900,000 photos and artifacts is housed in a small museum in Switzerland.
It is so massive that it has never been properly catalogued.
His one grad-student, Edmund Carpenter tried.
There is a small book “Patterns that Connect,” can be found in most large libraries.
There is a much bigger book called. “Materials for The Study of Social Symbolism …”*
It is a 12 volume set housed in three boxes. These books are large in dimension. I would guess some 25 inches on a side. University libraries – rare book collection have them. The detail is mind numbing. You can buy a set for about five grand. Up from $2.5K a few years ago.
What makes this so intriguing to me is that one can stumble upon this basic form, as Jose did, and then in the creation of it discover the tranquility and beauty of the very act of creating it.
Throughout most of the Twentieth Century artists were striving to discover basic forms. Henry Moore in his sculpture, and Brancusi. Picasso in his art, which was based in some part by Gauguin and the Favre (Wild Beast) movement. Minimalism grew out of this searching for basic universal forms. Mondrian with color and design. And now James Tunnel with light and the many environmental artists.
What the artists are doing is searching for meaning in discovering universal forms. The creation of which can be a meditative process.
Finis –
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schuster
https://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/9780810963269
*Materials for the Study of Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art: A Record of Tradition & Continuity
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