The Worcester Art Museum (WAM) may be small by the standards of the Met, British Museum or Louvre. Nevertheless, it is amazingly well appointed and a visual pleasure. As noted in a previous post two of my main interests in art are the depiction of animals and landscapes. The WAM is filled with treasures on this account. Here is one of its gems — ‘Earth Mother’ by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Encaustic on Panel, 1882.

According to the WAM catalogue:

Burne-Jones was a second-generation member of the pre-Raphaelite artists, who rejected the growing materialization of industrialized England. Instead they focused on the comparative simplicity of the medieval world and the art of Italian painters prior to Raphael. Earth Mother, which shows the influence of Renaissance artists like Botticelli, was painted by Burne-Jones in connection with his series of stained-glass windows representing the planets. Here is an allusion to Earth Mother’s role of nurturing all life: human, represented by the child; animal, by the wolf; and horticultural, by the trees and vegetation. The snake next to the feet of Earth Mother symbolizes fertility and relates to Ceres, goddess of earth. To show earth’s role in the transitional nature of water, the allegorical figure is represented holding up a blue jar that produces clouds, rain, and eventually a stream below. To create the ivory like skin of the figures and the rich textures throughout, Burne-Jones employed the ancient technique of encaustic. The pigments are bound in a wax medium, over which the artist applied oil glazes and, in certain areas, minute touches of gold for an even more decorative effect.

Two interpretations sprang to my mind when viewing this painting. The first is its neo-pagan sensibilities. Of all the European religions, old and new, neo-paganism may have the most to teach us about animals, animality and nature-society relations. This is not because the old religions necessarily valued animals in an especial moral way, although some did. Rather it is because neo-paganist paradigms for understanding people, animals and nature use the body as a metaphor for individual, social, and ecological wholeness, integrity, health and well-being. Certainly a far more congenial metaphor than machine, cybernetic device or social construction. The second is of course the wolf and the snake. Both creatures have been reviled in Western thinking about animals and nature. Yet here they participate as valued member of a mixed community of humans and other animals, a broader body politic so to speak.

And note the wolf’s eyes. She’s looking at you…

cheers, Bill