Joseph Cornell gives birth to a box…
L: Detail of illumination in Origen's Homiliae in Genesim, in Exodum, in Leviticum (c.1480-5) Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena
R: Duane Michals, Joseph Cornell (1972) Photograph.
Birthing, physical birth, is one of poetry and art’s most powerful metaphors used for many centuries, perhaps ever since art first appeared. It plays on the relationship between sexual conception and mental conception while often conveying that our physical bodies do not determine our soul. We may be male or female but our minds, if we could but see them clearly, are androgynous. At left is a 15th-century illustration from a recent post of God giving birth to the world; at right a photograph of the American artist Joseph Cornell giving birth to one of his boxes. I have no doubt that Cornell helped compose this picture in his bedroom; he even has a finger in his mouth like the woman at right.
Posted 14 Apr 2014: AndrogynyConceptionPosesTheoryVisual Perception
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