For some years now I have been interested in the “Green Man”. This is a very ancient image that features quite frequently in mediaeval architecture in this country (and also some countries on the continent.) The “Green Man” depicts a human face, but with foliage growing from the eyes, ears or mouth. For this reason they are sometimes referred to in architectural literature as “foliate heads”. The original meaning of these, although subject to a great deal of speculative discussion, is far from clear.
I am not sure what it was that attracted me originally to these images, but off and on over the past few years I have been returning to the idea and exploring it in my art. This week I managed to get started on an image that has been emerging gradually in my mind for some time. I think that I was stimulated into actually doing something by the enjoyment I have been having in working with a new medium …. egg tempera.
In this piece I have been returning to a set of ideas I have explored already in another context, namely the ancient idea of a “language of the trees”, which is discussed in a great deal of detail in Robert Graves’ book The White Goddess. His idea is that in ancient European culture different species of trees each carried a particular symbolic significance. So, I have been playing with the idea that the foliage that grows from the face of the Green Man should not be any old leaves, but very particular ones, combined into a composite, meaningful image. In the piece on which I am working at the moment the trees those foliage I sam using are the apple, the rowan, the blackthorn and the vine. An explanation of everything that is going on in my mind at the moment would be too complex (and, frankly, still too unclear) for me to discuss in detail.
It is not the case that I have set out with a set of clear ideas that can be spelled out in words, and that I am now “illustrating”. The process of painting is itself an integral part of the process of exploring just what ideas might emerge from that experience. It is a process of exploration and discovery rather than one of “illustration.” I hope that in successive posts I will be able to say more about this process as it develops, and eventually to post the finished piece on this website.