What an odd experience! Over the past few days I’ve been incubating an idea. (This will be based on the traditional architectural image of the “Green Man”.)* A set of four images have been sketched out, and reference material assembled….primarily in the form of pictures of the leaves of various trees. I’ve been interested in the image of the Green Man for a long time, and in fact have two rather fine versions fastened to doors in the house. The theme has never before figured in my own work. Quite suddenly, however, I had that suspicious feeling that an idea might be worth exploring. So I began leafing through various books I’ve accumulated on the subject, and in particular looking up references to the symbolic meaning given in the past to various trees.
Having drafted four different heads, employing the leaves of different trees, I made a start today on a more developed version of one of them. It was only as I became really involved in the detail of this that it came to me, quite suddenly, why I was doing it, and why I might have chosen these particular trees. I do find it interesting quite often to reflect on the way in which the subconscious mind beavers away in the background, doing all the work, while what you believe you are “thinking” is actually relatively unimportant. Art is very strange in that respect.
*The “Green Man” might not be familiar to readers who are not from England–and certainly those of you who are not from Europe. Sometimes referred to technically as a “foliate head”, it consists of the image of a human face with foliage growing out of the different orifices. These images were a common feature of both capitals and roof bosses in mediaeval churches, although the idea was frequently imitated during the Victorian Gothic revival. The meaning of these is a complex and contested subject, and I might well have additional comment to make on this in subsequent posts.