(no subject)
Twice in one day, I know. But I've been pondering.
On my front door is a painting by Georgia O'Keefe of a steer skull, which I cut from a calendar. I'm rather fond of it. As I was unlocking the door after my library/post office trip I thought, "Oh, Bull-El." (El of Canaanite/Semitic religion is frequently portrayed as a bull, with the epithet 'bull-El'). Then it occurred to me that the symbol of a bovine skull is extremely prominent in Western, especially American, art. Logically, of course, this can be tied to the American West's early dependance on cattle farming and the subsequent death of the professional cowboy with the advent of mass-market meat farming. Hell, my dad's obsession with the Old West has led to a pair of fucking enormous steer horns hung over the mantelpiece, a real skull mounted on a frame in the dining room, and another real skull sitting out in our front flower bed in front of the stone with our name on it.
But of course, what if there's more to it than that? Why a cow skull? Other decapitated animal heads are stuffed and mounted, but what is the great drawing appeal of the naked skull of a bull? The cowboy thing is certainly part of it, the great romantic draw of the wide open plains (which in my humble opinion is a bunch of bull shit), but I'm not convinced that's all of it. I bet if you asked the average person why they display a cow skull in their living room, or beside the front walk, unless they're a cattle rancher or (like my dad) simply obsessed with the West, they couldn't give you an answer more specific than "I like it." Or "it looks cool."
It's because there's something primeval about it. That naked cranial bone is a symbol dating back to the very earliest days of religion, maybe even as far back as the days when our ancestors kept their records on the walls of caves. Bulls figure frequently in those paintings. We know that by the early bronze age, or earlier, the main deity of the Levant--El--was identified with the bull. It is also known that priests wore bull skulls as masks in Levantine culture, and that when Moses's followers wanted to pay tribute to the god that led them out of Egypt, they made a pair of golden calves (or more accurately, young bulls). The wife of king Minos had sex with a bull that had been given to Minos by Poseidon himself with the intention that it be sacrificed, and she gave birth to the Minotaur the bull-headed man. There are other examples, numerous examples. Even further from the Levant, Hindus regard cows as sacred animals and I believe that Brahman is depicted as having the head of a bull
That's my geek-rant for the day. Now go forth and contemplate Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.
On my front door is a painting by Georgia O'Keefe of a steer skull, which I cut from a calendar. I'm rather fond of it. As I was unlocking the door after my library/post office trip I thought, "Oh, Bull-El." (El of Canaanite/Semitic religion is frequently portrayed as a bull, with the epithet 'bull-El'). Then it occurred to me that the symbol of a bovine skull is extremely prominent in Western, especially American, art. Logically, of course, this can be tied to the American West's early dependance on cattle farming and the subsequent death of the professional cowboy with the advent of mass-market meat farming. Hell, my dad's obsession with the Old West has led to a pair of fucking enormous steer horns hung over the mantelpiece, a real skull mounted on a frame in the dining room, and another real skull sitting out in our front flower bed in front of the stone with our name on it.
But of course, what if there's more to it than that? Why a cow skull? Other decapitated animal heads are stuffed and mounted, but what is the great drawing appeal of the naked skull of a bull? The cowboy thing is certainly part of it, the great romantic draw of the wide open plains (which in my humble opinion is a bunch of bull shit), but I'm not convinced that's all of it. I bet if you asked the average person why they display a cow skull in their living room, or beside the front walk, unless they're a cattle rancher or (like my dad) simply obsessed with the West, they couldn't give you an answer more specific than "I like it." Or "it looks cool."
It's because there's something primeval about it. That naked cranial bone is a symbol dating back to the very earliest days of religion, maybe even as far back as the days when our ancestors kept their records on the walls of caves. Bulls figure frequently in those paintings. We know that by the early bronze age, or earlier, the main deity of the Levant--El--was identified with the bull. It is also known that priests wore bull skulls as masks in Levantine culture, and that when Moses's followers wanted to pay tribute to the god that led them out of Egypt, they made a pair of golden calves (or more accurately, young bulls). The wife of king Minos had sex with a bull that had been given to Minos by Poseidon himself with the intention that it be sacrificed, and she gave birth to the Minotaur the bull-headed man. There are other examples, numerous examples. Even further from the Levant, Hindus regard cows as sacred animals and I believe that Brahman is depicted as having the head of a bull
That's my geek-rant for the day. Now go forth and contemplate Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.