Kind of Blue

This post goes out to Luis, with apologies....apologies because it's kind of a mixed bag....it was an enlightening experience to see how my writing is affected when I have an audience in mind!

In a recent post titled The Avant-Garde, Occultism, and Fascism, I looked at fascist leaders and their connection to the arts and the occult.  In some cases, such as Germany, Italy, and Spain, the fascists controlled their respective countries.  In others, such as the UK and the USA, the fascists were not in power, and the Second World War caused those movements to fold.  That isn't to say that fascism disappeared, simply that the organized fascist parties and their paramilitary wings could no longer operate when their countries were engaged in total war against fascism itself.  They morphed into something more....discrete.  The far right has never gone away, and it's aims and ideals remain as strong as ever among what would seem to be a growing number of people.

Sparked by an exchange with a long-time reader in Portugal, I decided to take a look to see how fascism manifested there.  Portugal has about 10.3 million people, with a large population abroad.  France counts large numbers of Portuguese residents who have come here to find work.  Portugal is not as wealthy as the rest of Europe, so a lot of people leave for brighter pastures, accumulate some money, and return.  When I went to Luxembourg, I visited several bars catering to a Portuguese clientele and was surprised to hear a Portuguese radio station.

At the dawn of the 20th century, Portugal was a constitutional monarchy, which was overthrown in 1910.  The result was the First Portuguese Republic.  The Republic was fragile, the period tumultuous, and in 1926 a coup ended it, resulting in a military dictatorship.  This Ditadura Nacional (national dictatorship) was followed by the corporatist Estado Novo. (follow that link to "corporatism" for more info)

The leader of the "new state" was António de Oliveira Salazar, and he would remain in power until his death in 1970.   Before Salazar came to power, however, there was full-on fascist party jockeying for power.

Francisco de Barcelos Rolão Preto (note the mustachee!)

Some Portuguese fascists were organized into the Portuguese National Syndicalists, commonly referred to as camisas azuis ("Blue Shirts"), led by Francisco Rolão Preto. 

According to the abstract of António Costa Pinto's The Portuguese “Blue Shirts” and Salazar’s “New State”

The Portuguese National Syndicalist Movement was founded during the transition to authoritarianism and unified a “political family” which had played an important role in the crises and downfall of the Parliamentary Republic (1911–1926) but had been marginalized during the establishment of stable dictatorial rule under Salazar at the beginning of the 1930s. National Syndicalism belatedly unified fascist currents arising from the large but divided post-war radical right. It attracted the most radical members of the parties and ideological pressure groups created during the twilight years of the Parliamentary Republic. Before it was outlawed and its leaders exiled in the mid-1930’s, National Syndicalism had set up an organization that included a sizeable army sector and had organized several coup attempts against the Salazar regime. As in other authoritarian contexts, the consolidation of the “New State” of Salazar meant the dissolution and repression of native fascism.

Preto was exiled by Salazar in 1934, who denounced the NS for being "inspired by certain foreign models" (German Nazism).  He also condemned their 

exaltation of youth, the cult of force through direct action, the principle of the superiority of state political power in social life, [and] the propensity for organizing masses behind a single leader.

 

National Syndicalist symbol.

The "corporatist state" envisioned by Salazar was similar to that of Italian fascism and the original corporativismo of Benito Mussolini, but there were considerable differences in their approach to governing.  Salazar admired Mussolini and was influenced by his Labour Charter of 1927, but he distanced himself from Fascism itself, which he considered a "pagan Caesarist political system" with no legal or ethical limits....Salazar also viewed German Nazism as espousing "pagan elements" that he considered repugnant.  Just before World War II, Salazar declared his opposition to '"might over right.". Deeply Catholic, capitalist, and conservative, but not "fascist" in the strictest sense of the term.

Could this denunciation of "paganism" be due to the occult influences on Nazism from Ariosophy and the Thule Society, and the mystical Freemasonry that D'Annunzio embraced?  Or was it the nationalistic mysticism of Nazi (Thule) and Fascist (Imperial Rome) mythology?  Salazar was far too Catholic to accept that stuff, and too pro-Capitalist to accept the "socialism" of his German and Italian counterparts.

Preto and followers

Although some scholars consider Salazar's government fascist, some say it wasn't; conservative and authoritarian, but as one can see in the quotes above, he denounced fascism.  Could we say he was a fascist but not a Fascist?

Not to split hairs, but in these posts I speak of "Fascists" and "fascists".  Fascism is a specific ideology which incorporated many notions often associated with the left.  Hitler, D'Annunzio, and Mussolini were Fascists.  As were Mosley, Pelley, Franco, and Preto.  But Salazar, despite his secret police, authoritarianism, and brutality, was not.  I think.  Fascistic, yes.  But not a large-F fascist.  His Catholicism and Capitalism would seem to preclude it.  In the end, I'm not sure most people were all to concerned with the fine print.  The secret police, repression, and torture were more on their mind.  One should also bear in mind that I'm far from an expert on the subject, and scholars are still debating exactly what constitutes "fascism".  Maybe we should just call a spade a spade, but it's hard to apply the label to a man who specifically denounced it and exiled those who identified as such....I'm open to other points of view and don't really object to applying the label to salazar and O'Duffy.  Hell, I've called Trump a fascist, with a small "f" anyway....

Historian Robert Paxton observes: 

In fascism's heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization....[Salazar] crushed Portuguese fascism after he had copied some of its techniques of popular mobilization.

Hence the exile of Preto in 1934.  Portuguese National Syndicalism had unified elements from among the post-war radical right.  Preto wrote "our organic syndicalism is essentially the basis of current syndicalist thought among Mussolini’s friends."  Before it was outlawed and its leaders exiled in the mid-1930’s, National Syndicalism had organized several coup attempts against the Salazar regime.  No love lost there.

The Blue Shirts used the so-called Roman Salute and, after the example of other movements, followers called Preto "the Chief" (Chefe).  "Duce," "Fûhrer," "Caudillo," etc...  He was apparently genuinely revered by his followers.  He was in close contact with German and Italian delegates, publicly exalting the fascism of both nations.  

After WW2, however, Preto renounced fascism and joined a left-wing movement.  The idea that the far-left and far-right lead to the same place is not as odd as it may first appear.

After World War II, Rolão Preto abandoned fascism and joined the left-wing forum Movement of Democratic Unity, and he published a volume entitled A Traição Burguesa ("The Bourgeois Betrayal"). The book criticised fascist regimes for becoming victims of social and political compromises with the bourgeoisie. In 1945 he thought that "neither the glorious clarions of nationalist mysticism nor the powerful social projections of Nazi efforts can make us forget what Nazism represented — the deception of the revolutionary hopes that gave birth to National Socialism".

Salazar was not a big-F fascist, he was still brutal dictator.  I have a friend whose father spent 7 years in a Lisbon prison for distributing communist newspapers, where, among other tortures, his captors sought information by pulling off his fingernails.

After his death in 1970, the country fell once again into turmoil.  Fortunately for Portugal, a moderate military faction emerged, staged a coup, and turned the country over to civil authority.  In 1975, the country staged its first election in 50 years and today remains a stable democracy.

Researching the Portuguese Blue Shirts, I also found this was the nickname for yet another group of fascists, in Ireland (and of course, in Spain).  Ireland and Portugal have some similarities.  Both have a smallish population, are historically less wealthy than the rest of Europe, Catholic, and have a large number of citizens living abroad.

Eoin O'Duffy

Ireland was occupied by Anglo-Normans waaay back in 1169.  Jumping ahead some centuries, years of struggle culminated in the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921).  This happens to be the period during which fascism was emerging, and in Ireland, where nationalist sentiment was riding high after a successful guerrilla war against England, it's not surprising fascism found adherents.  

One admirer was Eoin O'Duffy, a veteran of the war, a former commander in the IRA, and a former police commissioner.  A group organized by and for vets, the Army Comrades Association (ACA), asked O'Duffy to lead the group in 1933, and he began to transform the organization along the lines of his fascist principles.

ACA flag

O'Duffy was offered and accepted leadership of the ACA and renamed it the National Guard. He re-modelled the organisation, adopting elements of European fascism, such as the straight-arm Roman salute, the wearing of uniforms and huge rallies. Membership of the new organisation became limited to people who were Irish or whose parents "profess the Christian faith". O'Duffy was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and the Blueshirts adopted corporatism as a chief political aim....

O'Duffy and the National Guard

The history of the period is too complex for me to summarize, but the quote above indicates some elements O'Duffy adopted from fascists in Italy and Germany.

The uniforms, the "Roman" salute, the rallies, the cry of "Hoch O'Duffy!"  ("Hoch" = "Heil"), corporatism....O'Duffy openly admired Mussolini, and started a newspaper to promote corporatism (like Preto), and voice opposition to "alien" control and influence.

In the early stages of the 2nd Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, O'Duffy offered Mussolini to send 1000 Blueshirts to help the Italians.  He and some of his men also made an appearance at the 1934 International Fascist conference in Montreux, arguing against antisemitism.  The goal of this conference was to create a Fascist International to oppose the Communist Internationale, and identified fascist movements in 39 countries, including Portugal.  Despite Salazar's reservations about Fascism, he certainly found enough affinities to send a delegation to this conference, oddly the same year he exiled the "hard Fascists" of the National Syndicalists.  The Portuguese delegation included reps from Acção Escolar Vanguarda (Vanguard School Action) and União Nacional, headed by António Eça de Queiroz (future head of the National Radio Station of Portugal).  There were no representatives from Italy, Nazi Germany, or the British Union of Fascists.  From the outset, he conference was divided over the role of Nazi Germany, antisemitism, and role of race in international fascism.  As we've already seen, the Irish delegation opposed antisemitism, as did the organizer of the conference, Eugenio Coselschi.

In 1936, O'Duffy also led a contingent to assist Franco during the Spanish Civil War.  

By this time the Blueshirts had already been banned, changed name, been subsumed by another group, and succumbed to infighting.  After his return from Spain, O'Duffy continued to network with German and Italian spies for the fascist cause, without much success.  O'Duffy's personal affairs had become something of a mess and worsening alcoholism led to his early death at the age of 54 (1944).

It's rather ironic he was taken by drink.  According to Wikipedia 

O'Duffy believed in the ideal of "cleaned manliness".  He said sport "cultivates in a boy habits of self-control [and] self-denial" and promotes "the cleanest and most wholesome of the instincts of youth".  He said a lack of sport caused some boys to have "failed to keep their athleticism, but became weedy youths, smoking too soon, drinking too soon".

Not that sport is inherently fascist, but it does bring to mind the then-current concept of "Muscular Christianity" and the emergence of organized sport and other outdoor activities, such as Scouting.  Nazism was certainly big on athleticism, physical culture, and clean living, at least outwardly.  Hitler was like a pin-cushion of uppers and downers.  But, hey, he was a vegetarian.  

Physical culture was a prominent part of the Nazi propaganda machine.  Fascism is a strange hybrid when it comes to technology; on one hand it exalts nature and hearkens back to a glorious, mythical past, yet it also embraces the might of technology.  Italian Futurism was very influential on fascism in Italy, with its machine-age stylings and love of bells, whistles, electricity, planes, trains, and automobiles; yet fascism in general also placed importance on the relationship of the people (blood) and the natural world (soil).  We wrote about this sort of "green" or "ecofascism" at the beginning of June.  In many ways, fascism was a Romantic reaction to a rapidly-changing world, both suspicious of and taking technology in hand.

1936

In the final season of Peaky Blinders, we find anti-hero Thomas Shelby navigating his way through the interwar political landscape.  One of his adversaries is British fascist Oswald Mosley, (see my previous post), and he also gets tangled up with Irish fascists.  Odd intersection; until researching this post the talk of Irish fascists was new to me.

In one scene, Shelby explains that

Since I've entered politics, I've learned that the line doesn't go out from the middle to the left and the right.  It goes in a circle....You go far enough left, eventually you'll meet someone who has gone far enough right to get to the same place.  Working-class socialists like me, working-class nationalists like you.  The result?  National Socialism.

Well... since I've entered politics, I've learned that the line doesn't go out from the middle to the left and the right. It goes in a circle. I'll show you. You go far enough left, eventually you'll meet someone who has gone far enough right to get to the same place. Working-class socialists like me, working-class nationalists like you. The result? National Socialism. And that's me, in the middle. Just a man trying to make an honest living in a very dark world. You have friends in Dublin, Laura McKee, who are actively fighting for a Fascist Ireland. And you are acting on their behalf, ain't you? When Jack Nelson comes to London, I can give him access to Oswald Mosley and to Fascist sympathisers in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, on both sides of the divide. Fascism is quite the thing... among the very best people. And with your help, I can also offer him Dublin.

Read more at: https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=287&t=51644

Well... since I've entered politics, I've learned that the line doesn't go out from the middle to the left and the right. It goes in a circle. I'll show you. You go far enough left, eventually you'll meet someone who has gone far enough right to get to the same place. Working-class socialists like me, working-class nationalists like you. The result? National Socialism. And that's me, in the middle. Just a man trying to make an honest living in a very dark world. You have friends in Dublin, Laura McKee, who are actively fighting for a Fascist Ireland. And you are acting on their behalf, ain't you? When Jack Nelson comes to London, I can give him access to Oswald Mosley and to Fascist sympathisers in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, on both sides of the divide. Fascism is quite the thing... among the very best people. And with your help, I can also offer him Dublin.

Read more at: https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=287&t=51644

 

Preto is a good example; after WW2 he denounced fascism and became involved in left-wing politics. In France today, many supporters of far-right leader Marine Le Pen are ex-Communists.  (In yesterday's legislative elections, her party is set to win 90 seats in the French parliament, far beyond expectations).  

Before the Second World War, the explicitly fascist French Popular Party (1936-1945) was founded by ex-Communists.  Putin's guru Alexander Dugin also recognizes this circular model; his "Nazbol" (1993-2007) group, the National Bolshevik Party, used the Nazi flag;  red field, white circle, black icon.  But instead of a swastika, they used a hammer and sickle.

National Bolshevik Party

French Popular Party (like the NS and ACA, a cross)

Not to seem trivial, but I would be remiss not to discuss Slovenian group Laibach, musical outlet of the political art collective NSK (New Slavic Art).  As a country in which both Communism and Fascism have taken their turns, Slovenia is a natural wellspring for explorers of the totalitarian labyrinth.  Like the fictional Shelby, Laibach recognizes the limitations of the left-right axis political model.  

Laibach are often accused of being fascists for their use of uniforms, militaristic icons and imagery, and the martial sounds, and lyrics, in their music.  Despite being accused of having fascist sympathies, they actually have communist roots. They play with the imagery of totalitarianism to point out that authoritarian communism and fascism share as much as they differ.  They are trolling both "sides". 

 

 

Laibach incorporates the aesthetics of social realism, Nazism and Italian Futurism, demonstrating where extremes meet, much as the fictional Thomas Shelby with a water ring on a bar table.  Wikipedia speaks of Futurism emphasizing "dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city."  Hence Salazar's criticism of Facism's "exaltation of youth."

We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter."  So say the group, rather cryptically.  In the words of musician/journalist Richard Wolfson 

Laibach's method is extremely simple, effective and horribly open to misinterpretation. First of all, they absorb the mannerisms of the enemy, adopting all the seductive trappings and symbols of state power, and then they exaggerate everything to the edge of parody... Next they turn their focus to highly charged issues — the West's fear of immigrants from Eastern Europe, the power games of the EU, the analogies between Western democracy and totalitarianism.

Laibach are not fascists.  Like Pink Floyd and David Bowie, they are partly satirizing the fascistic elements of the rock concert as something akin to a fascist rally.  Interestingly, this rock star as fascist is also accompanied by a mental breakdown; in The Wall, Pink is falling apart.  And Bowie?  A lad, insane.  But I think Laibach are as much concerned with the dangers of capitalism with anything else.  Toying with totalitarian aesthetics, they remind us to take a hard look at authoritarian aesthetics; the rallies of modern North Korea and those of Nazi Germany:  there isn't much difference except the colors and symbols. 

While this was a brief aside when I mentioned McDuffy's remarks about sport, I include the video above for Laibach's song The Whistleblowers.  An homage to Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, it's pictured as a kind of fascist training program for youth.  The imagery is fascist, but the message is decidedly in favor of those with the courage to break the silence beneath which governments commit all manner of crimes.  Some may think their tactics are in poor taste; I think they're trying to make people really examine their own "democracy."  They are saying that in many ways a capitalist, western democracy is just as capable of committing atrocities as the fascist regimes.  We think of Nuremberg rallies and Communist parades and shudder.  But aren't our cultures also reveling in spectacles we actually pay for?  Spectacles where mindless masses cheer and scream for "heroes" that earn more in a single match or concert than most will earn in a year?  Is a fascist rally any worse than a rock concert or the Super Bowl?  Our "culture" is an increasingly expensive series of "spectacles...."  Hats off to Guy Debord and The Society of the Spectacle.  Written in 1967, it's truer today than ever.  Culture behind a paywall.  Marinetti predicted his future, our past; Debord predicted his future, our present.

While Hitler has become synonymous with human evil, and wearing a swastika in public unthinkable, one can wear a hammer and sickle with impunity.  But in terms of human destruction, Stalin matches Hitler, perhaps exceeds him.  By some estimates Stalin is responsible for 6 million deaths due to mass murder and forced labor.  Others put that at 9.  If famine is included, the figure could be as high as 60 million people.  And Pol Pot, ostensibly a Communist, was unimaginably barbaric, killing up to 2 million Cambodians.

Comparing death tolls like baseball stats is grotesque, but illustrative.  This brief foray into fascism has taught me that left and right are not straight lines, but curved lines that often meet, like circumnavigating a globe.  Like Shelby tracing a circle on a table top.  The lines become something like a fence encircling everyone in the middle hoping just to get by.

The fascist impulse seems to be something which hasn't gone away, merely changed forms.  Before embarking on this series of posts, I only associated fascism with Germany, Italy, and Spain.  We speak of international communism, but not much about international fascism.  But we should.  It may seem counter-intuitive to think of nationalists embracing international coordination, but as the Financial Times reports     

Since being ousted from his position as White House chief strategist in 2017, he [Steve Bannon] has shifted his attention to Europe, helping launch the Brussels-based The Movement, a rightwing think-tank to support nationalist, anti-establishment groups.

Bannon has opened a center in Italy in order to cultivate links between far-right groups and politicians from Italy, Greece, and Hungary, and from across Europe.  Said Bannon in 2019

“Come back here in a few years and you’ll find 100 students; 20 to 25 faculty [staff]. You’ve already had a couple of classes graduate [by then] and people are back in media, back in political campaigns, serving as junior ministers in government and starting to build a network . . . I think this academy will start to build a cadre.”

Something to keep an eye on, despite the skepticism of many European rightwing leaders.  Today's fascists may not wear easily-recognizable uniforms other than black and yellow polo shirts, but their aims are not much different from their early-20th century counterparts.  The digital revolution is as transformative as the technological revolution of years past, and the reactionaries of today are as committed as those of that period.  January 6th may well be a prelude of what is yet to come.

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

John Philpot Curran (1750-1817)

I know this post is a bit of a jumble, and I'm sure some new color of shirt will pop up soon, but for now, da- da- das ist alles, Völker!

So Luis, what do you think?  Have I got anything dreadfully wrong?  I feel a little out of my depth with this one, so I'd be happy to hear your point of view.  Obrigado antecipadamente e obrigado pelo seu apoio.

Forest for the Trees, Stones for the Mountain

Not sure how, but my recent Ukraine-related searches somehow led me to a photo I hadn't seen in a while.  I think it was a result of Czar Vladimir's claim that Ukraine is led by Nazis.  All this despite the fact that President Zelensky is Jewish.  But hey ho!  Jews for Hitler, right?  

It worked for Richard Green.  (See Apocalypse Culture II, Adam Parfrey, ed., P. 397)

I'd mentioned the photo in question back in 2007 as part of a post about the kerfuffle surrounding a swastika-shaped barracks at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego.  In that post I mentioned a swastika which, like the Coronado building, was visible only from the air.  But this swastika was made of trees, and became visible when the seasons turned the strategically-placed larches yellow against the surrounding evergreen pines.  The origin of this "treestika" is uncertain, but it's fate is more clear.  In 1995 a few leiderhosen-clad dudes with chainsaws cut down 43 of the 100 offending trees; yet in 2000, traces were still visible, so a further 25 trees were felled.  By all accounts it's now been pretty much obscured.  Auf Wiedersehen, Nazi trees.  Situated near the German village of Zernikow, not so far from Berlin, this is what the treestika looked like when the season was right (i.e. Spring and Autumn):

 

 

According to Wikipedia:

Reports say the larches were planted in 1938. It is unclear how the trees came to be planted and arranged in such a fashion. It seems they were planted in commemoration of Adolf Hitler's birthday, either by local Hitler Youth members or by a warden.

At the time of the Coronado post, I'd heard of another "forest swastika" near the town of Asterode in the state of Hesse, which also included the date "1933".  This second homage was apparently discovered by American soldiers in the 70's, but its origins are even more obscure than the Zernikow version.  Until recently I hadn't seen a photo, but now we have, and here it is (from Atlas Obscura): 

 

 

 

Apparently such "horticultural hate" (quote from ABC News) was a pretty popular hobby for Nazi sympathizers, because there is yet another tree swastika in Kyrgyzstan, near the village of Eki Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, on the edge of the Tian Shan Mountains.  This was first reported by the New York Times in 2006.  According to the article it was at least 60-years old at the time.  Roughly 600-feet across, legend has it that German POW's duped their Soviet captors to plant the symbol as an act of defiance.  But the legend is untrue, and the article recounts several conflicting versions about its origins. But no German POW's ever worked there. One account says it was planted in the 30's, others say the 40's.  Still others say 1958.  Another version dates it to 1960.  

Those who point to the 30's say it was made to celebrate Stalin and Hitler's non-aggression pact.  Those who point to later dates blame German nationalists or Nazi sympathizers.  The local forestry service hasn't been much help, as its records are in disarray and date back only to 1960.  Whatever the case, it should be noted that today it's hard to make out and isn't very accurate.  For one thing it's flat, and not at a 45° angle; for another, it points in the opposite direction of the Nazi swastika.

 

You can read the article yourself if it's not behind a pay wall.  The NYT is tricky that way.

 

This is the best photo we've seen of the swastika, and as you can see, it was either poorly-executed or time hasn't been kind to it, because it takes a little imagination to see the swastika.

But this kind of tree imagery is not the province of fascists alone; the Soviets also did it.  According to this article, Russian photographer Slava Stepanov captured the following image with the aide of a drone. 300-meters long and 82-meters high, one can clearly see the Cyrillic for "Lenin" spelled out with pine trees.  Stepanov figures the work dates back to the 1970's.  1970 was the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, so it's not an improbable estimate.  It's located near the town of Tyukalinsk in the Ornsk region.

 

 

The Telegraph reports on another Lenin tree memorial, but you have to sign up for a free trial to read it.  Wikimapia doesn't have much to say, but it does say the trees spell out "Lenin's 100 Years".  So that 1970 date for the Tyukalinsk version might be on the money.

 

This Twitter account (USSR Pictures) links to yet another Lenin tree memorial near the town of Ivanava.  Not gonna show that photo here, but you get the idea.  I'd be willing to be there are more of these scattered throughout the ex-USSR.

The use of trees to make art is not limited to political statements.  Irish Central reports on a Celtic cross made of trees, saying

The Emmery Celtic Cross, which appeared in Donegal in Fall 2016, was the handiwork of forester Liam Emmery, who sadly passed away before seeing the magnificent final product.

 

 

The cross is 100-meters long and 70-meters wide and is made of two different species of trees.  It is sad that Mr. Emmery died before it was fully-realized; apparently he'd had an accident and lingered for two years before passing on.   I kind of feel bad for including his handiwork in such dubious company, but I think it's interesting that the technique has been in use so recently.  Hats off to you, Mr. Emmery.

 

Apparently the cross should be visible for another 60 to 70 years.  Maybe the local authorities will do something to help it live a little bit longer.

I guess this kind of work would be akin to what is sometimes called "land art", which in effect is a kind of monumental sculpture.  That these works of "tree art" are literally living things is a pretty nifty take on the concept.  Art that grows and changes over time, and eventually, dies.  I guess all art eventually "dies," as even stone erodes.  I myself once made an assemblage topped with a plastic skull which serves as a flower pot, but I keep forgetting to water the damn thing and can't get the plants I've added to really bloom. 

These forest artworks also remind me of what are known as geoglyphs, defined by Wikipedia  as

a large design or motif (generally longer than 4 metres) produced on the ground by durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth.

Geoglyphs can often (but not always) only be seen from the sky, which has prompted more than a few people to speculate they were made for aliens.  Of course they were!  It is possible they were intended to be seen by the gods from the heavens.  It's also possible they weren't intended to be seen at all, which is as fascinating a concept as anything from among the -isms, jisms and paroxysms of high modernism.  

What I've heard referred to as "land art" may be the closest corollary to geoglyphs in the "fine" art world.  The most famous example may be Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970, fancy that), a form chosen perhaps, because so many ancient geo- and petroglyphs are spirals, a symbol some interpret to be a representation of the cosmos.  As above so below:  from the milky way to water down the drain, the universe moves in spirals.  Tornadoes, atoms, DNA...helices ans spirals.  I've even heard it said that the swastika, in a way, represents the same cosmological movement as the spiral.  And the swastika, though sadly tarnished by the Nazis, has been used as a spiritual symbol for millennia in Buddhism, Hinduism, various pagan contexts, even in ancient synagogues (eg Capernaum).

For an idea of just how universal the swastika is:

In various European languages, it is known as the fylfot, gammadion, tetraskelion, or cross cramponnée (a term in Anglo-Norman heraldry); German: Hakenkreuz; French: croix gammée; Italian: croce uncinata; Latvian: ugunskrusts. In Mongolian it is called Хас (khas) and mainly used in seals. In Chinese it is called 卍字 (wànzì) meaning "all things symbol", pronounced manji in Japanese, manja (만자) in Korean and vạn tự / chữ vạn in Vietnamese. 

The most famous of geoglyphs are perhaps the Nazca lines,  built by the Inca in what is now Peru.  These were created in two phases over the millennium between roughly 500 BCE and 500 CE.  Hundreds of these geoglyphs have been found and the largest is over a kilometer in width.  Some of the lines are just that, lines; but there are also animals, flowers and even humanoid forms. No swastikas or Cyrillic, though.  According to National Geographic, there are over 800 lines, 300 geometric patterns and 70 zoomorphic (flowers, animals, humanoids) designs.

The purpose of the Nazca Lines is unknown, although it's generally believed they have religious significance.  Others have suggested they are linked to irrigation patterns, still others to astronomy or astrological calendars.  None of which preclude a religious significance as well.

But these messages to the skies are not limited to South America.  I've been fascinated by the so-called mound builders of North America since I saw my first small mound in St. Mary's, West Virginia, where my dad grew up.  There's even a nearby town called Moundsville.  The Grave Creek Mound is not a geoglyph, but it is the largest conical-type burial mound in North America, standing 63 feet high and 240 feet in diameter at the base.  Many of the mounds are just that, mounds, much like the barrows of England.  

Some of the mounds, known as effigy mounds, are shaped like animals, people, or abstract geometric patterns and like the Nazca lines, often visible only from above.  The are also believed to have served a religious function and some are also burial sites.  Most of the effigy mounds were built in present-day Wisconsin, where as many as 20,000 were though to have existed, but only about 4000 are intact today.

Here's an example known as the the Marching Bear Group from the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa:

The "Mound Builder" culture extended primarily across the American Midwest, with the largest and most complex site located at Cahokia, just outside St Louis, but there are mounds as far south as Florida (there is a site I've visited in Safety Harbor with mounds built by the Tocobago people) and as far north as Canada.  According to the National Park Service, effigy mounds are located primarily in an area that

extends from Dubuque, Iowa, north into southeast Minnesota, across southern Wisconsin from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, and along the Wisconsin–Illinois boundary.

In addition to the aforementioned barrows, there is another form of geoglyph in Great Britain referred to as a "hill figure".  Many were once thought to be ancient, but more sophisticated archeological studies have revealed that many of them, at least in their current form, date to as recently as the 19th century.  The only verifiable ancient hill figure is the Bronze or Iron Age Uffington White Horse, but the most famous is arguably the Cerne Abbas Giant.  His date of origin is unknown, with some saying it was made as recently as the 17th century, others placing it back to circa 1000 BCE.  Other scholars date it to well, just about any time in between.

The giant is a source of great mirth because he's well, rather giant.  A real "size queen's" delight.  I'd say the giant is well-hung, but that thing ain't hanging at all, but shooting skyward like a cock rocket.

(You ever hear of a Japanese motorcycle referred to as a "cock rocket?"  I actually just Googled the term and it seems the phrase has now become associated with Jeff Bezos' New Shepard rocket; it doesn't help that a model of what has been said to "resemble a sex toy" recently went on sale.  For 69 $!)

But I digress.  The Cerne Abbas Giant.  Boiiinngg-g! 

 

In England a few years back I was surprised to see a hill figure near Westbury.  I'd been in the area to visit the magnificent stone circle built in and around the village of Avebury.  Apparently, many hill figures are horses.  This one, the Westbury White Horse, has origins as equally obscure as the Cerne Abbas Giant.  While some say it dates back to the 9th century, real evidence only appears as late as 1778.  Which is odd when you think about it.  These figures are massive, yet know one knows exactly how long they have been there?  The range of dates for the giant and horse are millennia apart.  

 

It's like the Kyrgyzstan swastika.  1930's?  1960'?  Know one knows.  The only two of these giant pieces of land art we can date with any precision are the Emmery cross (2016) and the Hesse swastika (1933).  Even for the latter, there is some uncertainty.  Was it made in 1933?  Or was it made later to commemorate the year Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany?

So, I began this with the intention of adding the Hesse and Kyrgyzstan swastikas to the blog because I'm something of an obsessive completist.  Then Lenin came along.  And Emmery (my apologies, good sir). 

That geoglyphs and hill figures are massive works of art visible either only from the sky or from afar seemed a natural extension of that idea.  Same concept, different tools.  Still using the earth itself as a medium, just in different ways.  As a student of art, with a fascination for architecture, monuments, and the strange, how could I resist?

Schwarze Notmuttergottes and Our Lady of Dublin: Two more Black Virgins

I've seen upwards of 20 Black Madonnas since stumbling half-drunk into the dark and cool confines of the Notre Dame de la Daurade basilica in Toulouse 15 years ago, so astonished at its Black Madonna that I embarked on a near-obsessional path in search of more "Vierges Noires".  The flame has abated, but it still gives me an excuse from time to time, when I travel someplace new, to visit an out-of-the-way village church or chapel in order to see another example or to simply poke around some place I might not otherwise have visited.

That said, I've never seen anything but "Latin" examples, for lack of a better term, in the south of France, Spain and Catalonia and, to my surprise, Andorra.  So it was with great pleasure that I was able to see a couple of examples outside of those countries.  The first is in Luxembourg city, the second in Dublin.

Schwarze Notmuttergottes

The first thing I noticed about the Luxembourg and Dublin Madonnas is that there is no origin story similar to the Spanish and especially French Madonnas.  These are almost to a number described as having been found after the strange behavior of animals, usually cows or oxen.  They were often found in springs, buried or hidden within bushes or trees.  They usually could not be moved from where they had been found.

Like most Black Madonnas, the Schwarze Notmuttergottes is renowned as a miracle-worker.  Many scholars date her to ca. 1360 and from the Cologne school, but there are no documents to support this; some Medieval accounts say she was brought back from the Middle East during the Crusades, which may account for one of her titles, the "Egyptian Mother of God."  We have seen a strong link between the Black Madonnas with Egypt before, not only in connection with Isis, but with Saint Sarah and the "three Marys".  It occurs to me that her mysterious origin may be a key feature to an especially fervent cult; not knowing from where or when she came, it's easier to imbue this ambiguity with a sense of mystery and miracle.  Having detailed documentation of being sculpted in a workshop makes it more difficult to imagine her as a miracle-working wonder sent from God.  To my eye, her posture, s-curve, coloration, crown and baton make her a dead-ringer for Notre Dame de Bonne Délivrance, located in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, said to be a 14th c. copy of an 11th c. original, though some say she is far more recent.

Her titles have included "Star of the Heavens" and the "Queen of Peace".  Already dark due to the wood in which she is made, she was inevitably darkened by years of burning tapers and incense, becoming specifically the Schwartze Notmuttergottes, or "Black" Mother in the wake of a plague epidemic, when she was charged with protecting children.  The centrality of her blackness as a salient feature is attested to not only in her name after this event, but in the fact that in later restorations her skin has been painted black; by the time of the plague, her blackness had become a critical part of her power.

The "Emergency Mother" was housed in a Franciscan monastery which was destroyed during the French Revolution; She was hidden for a while at the convent in Marienthal until in 1805 it became possible again to publicly display her at the church of Saint-Jean-du-Grund.  She is especially venerated during Lent.

Our Lady of Dublin is housed in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland. It is sculpted in wood and probably dates from the 16th century

Local legend says she started her life at St. Mary's Abbey, which was dissolved in 1539 as part of the Henrician reforms.  The first documentary evidence has her at St. Mary's Lane Parochial Chapel in 1749.  This chapel was razed in 1816, and (according to newspaper accounts in 1947 and 1974) Our Lady was found by a Carmelite priest in 1824.  It had been thoroughly disrespected at his point.  The priest is reported to have found her for sale in a common shop, and that she had in the interim, perhaps just after the Dissolution, been placed face down in an Inn's courtyard to serve as a pig trough!

Reports of neglect are a common theme in her story; a newspaper account from the 1830's reports that Her silver crown had been sold off; an article from the 60's states that when the Jesuits relocated the St. Mary's Lane chapel to Anne St., they simply left the statue behind.  In 1947 She went on temporary display at the National Museum of Ireland "as an example of a Catholic statue to survive the Penal days in Ireland"  She had obviously been rehabilitated; indeed, it has been on display in its current chapel since 1915, and rededicated in 1974.  (https://comeheretome.com/2013/11/13/our-lady-of-dublin-a-pig-trough-and-the-pillar/)

Her neglect and disrespect, and most of all, survival, is perhaps why she has been so revered.  The Irish survived English attempts to subjugate them and their Catholicism survived the Protestantism the English brought with them.  She thus has a kid of nationalist role like the Black Madonnas, for example, of Mexico, Poland, and Brazil.

Take heart!

We've grappled with disembodied hands at great length; kicked about the mystery of Canada's floating feet; taken a look at the removal of eyes; milked the story of amputated breasts and chewed on the puzzle of  mysterious teeth found in a house's walls.  We've dicked about with symbolic castrations until our energy petered out.  We've picked our brains about the Egyptian practice of removing them through the nose.  We've talked the subject of corpses into the ground and raised hell about relics and saints.  Small wonder then that when Gid and I both came across this tale, independently, he signaled it to me and I'd linked to it on Facebook.

During the night this weekend, a relic of St. Laurence O'Toole (1128-1180), a heart housed in a heart-shaped box, was stolen from an iron cage affixed to the wall.

A stolen heart, a literal stolen heart, the relic of a saint no less, cannot but be mentioned here on LoS.

Says the article:  "His heart has [had] been preserved in Christ Church Cathedral since the 13th century and was a major pilgrimage site during the medieval period."

Rev. Dermot Dunne, cathedral dean said:  "It has no economic value but it is a priceless treasure that links our present foundation with its founding father, St. Laurence O'Toole."

He added: "We have a peace candle, and we invite people to light candles during the day ... when staff were on their rounds, they found that it was lit already.  And then in our Trinity chapel - our prayer chapel on the north transept - all the candles were lit there. It's quite confusing."

Well, Dunne don't have much faith in his own relics.  A true believer might pay a small fortune for the miracle-producing church organ.  The lit candles may indicate the thief/thieves were religious men or women, praying for forgiveness as they defaced the church and stole away in the night.

The cathedral has a venerable history and dates from some time after 1028, about the time a Dane named Sitric Silkenbeard (!) made a pilgrimage to Rome.  A lot of other stuff happened after that.

Our man O'Toole, patron saint of actors (not), was honored with a chapel erected in the 13th-century.  All light-heartedness aside, the cathedral has a colorful history worth looking into, but I'll focus bit on the saint.
(Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the church also displays the mummified remains of a cat and rat found behind an organ, known by locals as "Tom and Jerry" and mentioned by Joyce in Finnegan's Wake....)

O'Toole was born Lorcán Ua Tuathail into a noble family down in the county Kildare.  O'Toole was the kind of man you don't meet everyday.  In his professional career he played important roles as a diplomat, church reformer and cleric.  Indeed, during a pause in an important series of negotiations, O'Toole was off saying Mass at the Shrine of Thomas Becket in Caterbury when an allegedly deranged fellow with the idea of creating another martyr struck him on the head.  Not one to let history repeat itself with a wooden blow to the top of his head, Ua Tuathail got knocked down, got back up again and finished Mass.

He died of an unrelated illness four year later while on yet another diplomatic mission, in Normandy.

Actor Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole, btw, played in 1964's Becket opposite Ricard Burton as Henry II, the man behind Becket's death....

O'Toole was a vegetarian ascetic, fasting every Friday and taking a retreat every Lent for the full 40 days.  Like another man with a famous head wound--John the Baptist--O'Toole wore a hairshirt.  (And here we are nearing Lent, which we've recently discussed, also recently citing a sculpture of JB that pales in comparison to an obscure Black Madonna).  O'Toole was canonized 45 years after his death due to a rapid succession of miracles at his tomb.  His bones were interred separately from his skull, the former disappearing some time duting the Reformation; his heart was brought to Christ Church, where it had stayed until this weekend.

(Biografickal info Wiki sourced)

Does the post-mortem fate of O'Toole's heart reflect the growth of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?  His execution actually predates the most popular period of this devotion; in O'Toole's time it was a more latent than widespred and its diffusion belongs more properly to the centuries after O'Toole's martyrdom.  Yet it was present in some form in the 10th and 11th centuries.  It's possible that St. Laurence was a devotee of sorts, but I haven't found anyhing linking him to it directly.

Whereas the head is the expressive faculty of the interior life and the windows on the world and into the soul, it is obvious choice for special veneration and unsurprisingly widespread from the earliest days of Christianity.  The martyrdom of John the Baptist was represented by the prophet's head on a plate.  We have already mentioned the cephalaphores in a few other posts.  These are saints whose heads continued to speak after their death and who are especially numerous in France.  We have also seen them connected with the Virgin Martyr genre in Portuguese exemplars as well as Saint Saturnina in northern France.  St. Denis, patron of Paris and arguably the most important saint of early Chrisian France, was a cephalaphore.

This "head worship" seems to have leaked into other domains as well.  The Templars, crushed in the 14th century, were accused of worshipping an idol representing a human head.  The guilloutine has always seemed to me to be something much more than an efficient killing machine.  It exerted a gruesome fascination upon the Parisian crowds and I'm tempted to see in it a reflection of a particular Gaulish psychological preoccupation with the head as an object of veneration.  There are tales from the Revolution of decapitated heads looking with terror at the crowds, mouths moving as if to speak, last vestiges of life.... Secular cephalaphores, a new kind or martyr.

In any event, the Middle Ages are rife with tales wherein relics are bought and sold, fabricated out of thin air, stolen, traded and raided.  An important relic could bring immense wealth and glory to a ctity, stir immense civic pride.  I'm currently reading an anthology entitled Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America.  Various authors evokes the cult of the saints as a precedent for the struggle over bodies and body parts of national heroes in Latin American politics.  This fascinating series of essays demonstrates the power of relics in our own times.  In a religious sense, that power remains wholly undiminished:  Jesus is found on a Cheeto, the Virgin on a piece of toast.  We've even reported on a dog piss-stain revered as a portrait of Jesus.  Even when the Church is reluctant to name new saints, the people force them upon the church.  Such is the case that unofficial saints have developed wholly outside Church authority:  Santa Hélèna of Toulouse, Gauchito Gil in Argentina, Jesus Malverde in Mexico, Saint Wilgifortis in Flanders.  A relic is powerful magic, a body part even more so.  But whereas reliquaries in the south of France might hold a meager chip of bone, Dublin had an entire organ....a human heart!  Which is actually small potatoes.  Churches in Italy are wont to have entire cadavers on display.  I've seen one Roman chapel where the altars and decorative niches were made entirely of human bones and full skeletons used for a series of decorative memento mori. 

The economic and even genuine spiritual value of relics is obvious to me and I'm not surprised by this theft at all.  Sadly though, the result will be that churches will become locked when not in use, making access more restricted.  A loss of innocence and convenience both for the faithful, the curious and writers such as I. (Fuck the faithful masses of Dublin, this is my blog we're talking about!)  But seriously, I've missed out on a lot of opportunties due to a locked church door.  That these last bastions of trust (the buildings, not the institution) are endangered by thievery is not a shock in our thoroughly debased world, but it is, erm, disheartening. 

Some time soon, we'll do up a bit on heart removal; from a Mexican devotee of the Emperor Iturbide to the Temple of Doom, heart removal has a fun and colorful history....