by Mike Harding
Published by Aurum Press (1998)
Description
Mike Harding presents a selection of the mos t fascinating manifestations
of green men, gargoyles, miseri cords and stained glass in this series. He
explains the back ground and meaning behind each subject in text and illustrations.
Review
This book is a gem. It measures only 155 x 160 mm, yet within its 67 pages
there is a disproportionate wealth of spiritual and cultural matter. A brief
introduction sets the scene. The frequent occurrence of this pagan fertility
figure in so many churches intrigues the author (and this reviewer). He appears
in many different guises, for example John Barleycorn who dies and is reborn,
Puck, The Old Man of the Woods. But the unifying theme throughout the book
is the connection between humankind and the vegetable world, and the connection
is made clear in four combinations of human face and vegetation.
The bulk of the book is comprised of superb photographs, nearly all by the
author, with commentary,of carvings of the Green Man mostly in churches in
Britain. There are also some from France (Chartres Cathedral, Sainte Chapelle
and Notre Dame in Paris). More surprisingly there are examples from Jain temples
in India, Buddhist temples in Kathmandu and a Roman Catholic church in Borneo,
the last a very striking guardian of the forest.
The geographical spread is notable. Within Britain there are no examples in
the East Midlands, East Anglia, nor, except a single one in Canterbury Cathedral,
in the South East. However, these are areas where Puritanism was strongest
in the 17th century and the Puritans may have destroyed the Green Man. There
is one example from Scotland, two from Wales and nothing from Ireland, though
this may reflect where Harding - the same person as the stand-up comic - did
his one-night stands. The wide geographical spread may also point to the image
being a manifestation from the collective unconscious.
Harding insists that the `Green Man has a story to tell us - if only we knew
how to listen.' The variety of photographs show us very different parts of
that story, and the pictures themselves may each have a variety of things
to tell us.
Philip Dymond
Hardcover 64 pages (June 23, 1998)
Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd
ISBN: 1854105639
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