Rob Schouten Gallery • At Greenbank Farm • 765 Wonn Road, C- 103 • Greenbank WA 98253 • 360-222-3070
The Irresistible Regeneration of Peace
- Rob Schouten
- oil on canvas
- 2006
- 30 x 40"
- $12,000
This is a painting with many complex layers of symbolism. We are inside a room whose floor and walls are a mountain landscape, the first light just illuminating the peak. The rest of the mountain and valley are in the dark. They represent consciousness and the shadow.
In the “valley of the shadows” stands a four-post daybed with illuminated candles atop the four posts. The bed represents a sacred space or altar with guardian posts in the four directions. An owl sits on the headboard, representing wisdom and clear vision in the night. The bed is also reminiscent of a mosque with four minarets.
Into this sacred space has entered a priestess. Her colors associate her with the bright garden and the “tree of life” to the left.
She has just taken a globe from its holder and opened it up to release from it the “light of the world”, the light of peace. The henna tattoo in the palm of her left hand, held up in blessing gesture, a combination of the gnostic “eight-pointed star of regeneration”, the ancient Icelandic rune “irresistibility” and the modern “peace” sign.
The priestess posture and dress echo the Tibetan goddess “Green Tara”, who is generally depicted with her right foot stepping off her lotus throne as a symbol of her great readiness to help all.
The pillows on the bed contain the Taoist symbols for “the five great blessings” (happiness, health, virtue, peace and long life) and “longevity”, and the alchemical symbol for the world spirit, the “spiritus mundi”, in combination with the astrological sign for earth. The white and red roses represent spirit and matter coming together, the “conjuctio” in alchemy.
The globe, its holder and the remnants of buildings in the shadows under the bed represent the out-moded, linear, left-brained, mechanistic view of the world.
Further symbolism in the painting is the young buck, at rest under the “tree of life”, representing immature masculine energy at rest and the river under the bed representing the eternal flow of time.
With this painting I have made an effort to address the current world situation without resorting to my anger and frustrations as the source for my creativity, believing an image of hope will do more to let the light of peace shine.
