XXth Century Visual Arts: The Great Mother Archetype

The article starts with delineating the boundaries and subject matter of research, with the Great Mother in the XXth century art being titscentral idea. K.G. Jung suggested archetypal analysis is used, including archetypal symbolism. The author, firstly, looks into the polysemy of the Great Mother archetype, in K.G. Jung interpretation, and the images of goddesses of different levels; secondly, a wide range of symbols of plenty are considered; thirdly, the Great Mother is viewed as protector of local lands; fourthly, the article touches upon spiritual protection; fifth, it cover the images of death and the afterlife; sixthly, the symbols of birth, transformation and resurrection are reviewed. The article highlights the ethical and aesthetic ambivalence of the analyzed archetype. Certain attention is paid to the disclosure of various features of the interpretation of the Great Mother archetype in the works of the followers of the Swiss thinker. The main body of the article is an analysis of the archetypal symbolism of the works of modernist visual art, in which images of the Great Mother are revealed. In the course of the study, such aspects are revealed: first, an elevated spiritual image impersonifying peace, love and culture (from N. Roerich); secondly, the embodiment of female beauty (mother's heart, S.N. Roerich); thirdly, the anthropomorphic image of nature (Mother Earth), successfully put to the service of man (D. Rivera); fourthly, the image of the feeding, protecting and supporting in its bosom earthly origin (in F. Kahlo); fifth, the Great Mother calmly accepting catastrophes caused by human imperfection and awaiting spiritual renewal of her children (L.S. Bakst); sixthly, the suffering aspect of the Great Mother archetype, personified with spiritualized images of the animal world, as opposed to the immorality of human civilization (by F. Marc); Seventh, the shadow negative-aggressive aspect of the analyzed archetype (in Max Ernst); Eighth, image of the Virgin with the features and hard fate of the Soviet woman, which gives spiritual strength to the struggle and embodies the new national ideal (in K.S. Petrov-Vodkin and M.A. Savitsky); ninth, the identification of the archetype of the Great Mother with the Motherland, calling for its defense (I.M. Toidze and others). In conclusion, the author proceeds to the Great Mother archetype in the culture of the 20th century and reviews its many manifestations in modern art. The archetype and its appearing increasingly often the author attributes to the crisis of Christian values and the unconscious search for new spiritual landmarks. Comparison of the manifestations of the Great Mother archetype in domestic and foreign art is given. It is underlined that searching for an art of the West European world puts forward the negative aspects of the analyzed archetype, while the domestic (and revolutionary Mexican) art focuses on the feeding and spiritual nature of it. The author believes that the Great Mother archetype in different cultures is rather compensatorial, if we come back to the collective unconscious. It is required that the subject be further researched into in relation to the sexual revolution and gender issues of the 20th and 21st centuries.

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