Hygeia & the Pentalpha

Medicine (as the goddess Hygeia), 1901, Gustav Klimt.

"In 1894, Klimt was commissioned to create three paintings to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna. Not completed until the turn of the century, his three paintings, Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence were criticized for their radical themes and material, and were called "pornographic". Klimt had transformed traditional allegory and symbolism into a new language that was more overtly sexual and hence more disturbing to some. The public outcry came from all quarters—political, aesthetic and religious. As a result, the paintings (seen in gallery below) were not displayed on the ceiling of the Great Hall. This was to be the last public commission accepted by the artist. All three paintings were destroyed when retreating German forces burned Schloss Immendorf in May 1945."

- Quote and photo (inset left) was sourced from the Wike entry for Gustav Klimt.

 

Regarding Klimt's ill-fated "pornographic" painting, Medicine, one explanation for his controversial portrayal of the goddess Hygeia (above) - possibly the most powerful depiction of a goddess ever - was his decision to transport a pagan deity into the 20th century. His goddess is a modern goddess; she is a formidable feminine force, and not merely the femme fatale archetype she is generally mistaken for, an archetype associated with the Symbolist movement in art and literature. And Klimt is considered a Symbolist... 

"The Symbolist position in painting was authoritatively defined by the young critic Albert Aurier, an enthusiastic admirer of Paul Gauguin, in an article in the Mercure de France (1891). He elaborated on Moréas’s contention that the purpose of art “is to clothe the idea in sensuous form” and stressed the subjective, symbolical, and decorative functions of an art that would give visual expression to the inner life. Symbolist painters turned to the mystical and even the occult in an attempt to evoke subjective states of mind by visual forms."

But, Klimt's Medicine is important in another way; whether intentional or unconsciously realized, there is some evidence of (what might be referred to as) a "Hygieian" pentagonal tradition... a tradition which began at least as far back as the first Pythagoreans and their pentalpha, so-named for the five-fold alphas (the capital "A") incorporated in its design. Importantly, the Greek word ὑγίεια also appears, which, along with the corresponding goddess, translates into "health." I'm assuming the graphic (inset right, see Wiki's Hygieia) is a facsimile of the ancient symbol but, as of this writing, I am not sure.

In any case, Klimt embedded a very bold spiral in the sinuous windings of Hygeia's golden reptile. While (most likely) not a perfect golden spiral, it is similar enough to satisfy the pentagonal muse and (what some might imagine to describe) the Pythagorean philosophy.

Below the jump: more spirals by Klimt...

Tree of Life (Stoclet Frieze) (detail), 1909, Gustav Klimt.

Well, okay, maybe Klimt just liked the spiral form; it is, after all, a device which adds motion to an image.

Incidentally, from 2022: The opening of the Hall des Lumières, a digital art museum in lower Manhattan. The first exhibit was an "immersive" digital extravaganza featuring the work of Gustav Klimt entitled (appropriately) Gold in Motion.

For an early 19th century statue of Hygieia* -  poetry in motion - see this photo from St. Bernard's Well in Scotland.

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Possibly a 19th Century (?) engraving of Hygieia shown holding a five-fold star and the "Rod of Asclepius."
(Pun inevitable.) 

"HYGIEIA (Hugieia), also called Hygea or Hygia, the goddess of health, and a daughter of Asclepius. In one of the Orphic hymns she is called the wife of Asclepius; and Proclus makes her a daughter of Eros and Peitho. She was usually worshipped in the same temples with her father, as at Argos, where the two divinities had a celebrated sanctuary... At Rome there was a statue of her in the temple of Concordia. In works of art, of which a considerable number has come down to our time, she was represented as a virgin dressed in a long robe, with the expression of mildness and kindness, and either alone or grouped with her father and sisters, and either sitting or standing, and leaning on her father. Her ordinary attribute is a serpent, which she is feeding from a cup. Although she is originally the goddess of physical health, she is sometimes conceived as the giver or protectress of mental health..."

- Excerpt from the Theoi entry for Hygieia.

Asclepius, Hygeia's father/husband was, in turn, the son of Apollo. As it so happens, Pythagoras was once referred to as "son of Apollo."

Then again, Sirona (inset left), the Celtic equivalent of Hygeia was the consort of the Celtic Apollo, a beautiful young man... who is definitely not her incestuous father.

"His travels had brought him to Croton, a city in southern Italy inhabited mostly by Greeks. Historians disagree about what he did there, but there is general agreement that Pythagoras combined radiant charisma with a shaman's magnetic charm. He was a teacher of many things, an uptown mystic in a backwater town. Crotonians flocked to bask in his glamour and soak up his wisdom. Pythagoras also had a "golden thigh," according to many ancient writers, who soberly reported this curious characteristic as if the man's leg literally were made of the metal. This led Crotonians to what they considered a natural conclusion: Pythagoras was either the god Apollo or the son of Apollo. There was no one the great man wouldn't teach -- children, the poor, city elders. To all, he disseminated his beliefs on faith, diet and morality. He even spoke to women, whom he treated as equals, atypical behavior for a man in those days that led some historians a few centuries later to discuss parallels between stories about Pythagoras and those about Jesus Christ."

- A small portion of the mythology surrounding the Greek mathematician found in Danny Hakim's 1996 article: Pythagoras: the cult of personality and the mystical power of numbers.

"Bowl of Hygeia

The snake in the Bowl of Hygeia is symbolic of Aesculapius (see the Rod of Asclepius) while the bowl itself represents Hygeia. Snakes were used in representations related to healing and medicine because ancient Greeks associated this animal’s ability to shed its old skin and grow a new one with wisdom, healing, and resurrection. The bowl represents the venom from the snake, which either kills or heals. 

Hygeia is the Greek goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation. Together with the asklepian (Rod of Asclepius), Hygeia’s symbol—the Bowl of Hygeia—is one of the oldest and most important symbols associated with medicine."

- Both quote and symbol (inset right) found at the Symbols Archive. Interestingly, while Hygeia is often interpreted as feeding a snake from a bowl, this description seems to inform us that Hygeia was milking the venom from her snakes jaws...a venom which either "kills or heals."

"Many people in Pythagoras's day were drawn by hushed whispers about life after death in some kind of nether world, a concept that reached Greeks from Egyptian and Eastern cultures. Secrecy and mystical traditions were part of the cults' appeal. It gave them an air of enlightenment and revolution. Each group had its own spin. Orphics emphasized transmigration of souls after death into new bodies. Cults dedicated to the god Dionysius preferred frenzied channeling rituals. Pythagoras's angle was numbers. He was, after all, a mathematician -- some consider him the world's first -- though certainly not in our sense of the word. To him, numbers were divine, the primary elements of all existence. Individual numbers had magical powers. Numbers, he said, are "the cause of gods and demons." Pythagoras started counting with the number 3. One and 2 he considered building blocks for all other numbers, not numbers themselves. Numbers were the building blocks of everything else.

- Another nice passage from the Hakim article (above).

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(This post has been abandoned.)

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*  Yes, I've used two spellings of the name "Hyreia" throughout this article. It's generally found on the web in both forms and I haven't a preference,

"...Thus we have an elaborate series of associations, all conveying the central conception of the cosmos as a manifestation of consciousness, of pure subjectivity, with Kuṇḍalinī understood as the force inseparable from consciousness, who animates creation and who, in her particularized form in the body, causes liberation through her upward, illusion-shattering movement."