An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism,
Volume 2: The Body

by George R. Elder

The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.,
Boston, MA 02115, USA. 1996. Xvi + 452 pp.
ISBN 1-57062-096-2.

Reviewed by Istvan Hargittai

This is a beautiful large-format book, a typical coffee table volume, whose 100 entries can be read and enjoyed one by one. It is the second volume of the Encyclopedia; the first volume appeared in 1990. The collection of color images and text of the first volume was organized around mythic themes from cosmos and creation to death, transformation, and rebirth. The second volume deals with artistic occurrences of the human body. This is a very focused collection in which various details get a lot of attention. The material is divided into 12 sections of an almost anatomical arrangement: Primordial Body; Bones; Skin; Head and Hair; Eye; Ear; Hand and Arm; Respiratory and Digestive Systems; Heart and Blood; Sex Organs; Foot and Leg; Transformed Body.

One hundred color plates represent artifacts distributed with apparent care among a wide range of techniques, time periods, geographic locations, religious affiliations, and probably many other, less conspicuous considerations. Each section devotes its opening page to some relevant poetry. Within sections, each entry has its color plate with some technical information and a summarized description of the illustration. A brief introduction is followed by the backbone of the material, a two-part discussion of the illustration called Cultural Context and Archetypal Commentary. Each entry is concluded with a short bibliography.

Individual selections might be an easy target to question but the collection is so comprehensive, the pool to consider so vast, and the obvious considerations so multi-faceted that nothing short of rich and fortunate would be a fair characterization. Yet if I could have my wish, I would have loved to see an image in which the learning, itself, about the human body is depicted.

Of the two parts in the main text, the Cultural Context is informative and helpful. We learn about the sculpture or painting, about the artist, and about the cultural and historical circumstances of the creative work. I feel ambivalent about the second part, the Archetypal Commentary. While I realize that this is the basic motivation and purpose of the whole collection, sometimes, I think, less might have been more helpful. A difficulty may have been for the author to decide whether to omit some famous scholars' opinions and discussions from the present overview.

A case in point is the Awakening Slave by Michelangelo Buonarotti, one of his famous "unfinished" sculptures. Elder is quoting the interpretation by the American psychiatrist, Robert Liebert, without identifying himself with it. According to this interpretation, "On the one hand, it symbolized his wet nurse, daughter and wife of stonecutters, from whom the artist himself said he imbibed the milk of working with marble; but on the other hand, the stone was the sickly biological mother who died in the artist's early childhood, failing to provide him with genuine nurture. Working with marble, Michelangelo fell into a tragic ambivalence, says Liebert: he would begin with a passionate anticipation of returning to the breast of his foster mother, yet eventually, painfully, encountered the absent mother and so two thirds of the sculptor's figures remained incomplete." To me this is an over-extension of the inferences such a sculpture may provide, to say the least.

Another reference Elder makes is to C.G. Jung and concludes that Jung would have approved of Michelangelo's unfinished "Slaves." He bases this conclusion on Jung's critique of some of Michelangelo's "finished" works. A rather indirect approach indeed. Among Liebert and Jung, there are patches in the text of the Archetypal Commentary of Michelangelo's Awakening Slave by Elder himself and they are helpful and imaginative. I wish only that he had shifted the balance to favor more his own commentary at the expense of the others' views.

To me the Awakening Slave never appeared unfinished. If looking for symbolism, I find it the perfect representation of the following statement attributed to Michelangelo: "The sculpture is already there in the raw stone; the task of a good sculptor is merely to eliminate the unnecessary parts of the stone." Elder's Taoist quote,"Return to the uncarved block" does not appear unconnected with this impression.

My comment above, concerning just one of one hundred entries, shows how thought-provoking the commentaries may be. In any case, every entry is a masterpiece, praising the author, a historian of religions, for his knowledge as well as his economy. In his Introduction Elder thanks the many scholars whose contributions made him seem to know more than he actually does. A remarkable modesty, but whatever the multitude of his sources, Elder proves to be a gentle and effective teacher throughout these pages. His seemingly effortless pedagogy will greatly contribute to the anticipated success of this book for a broad readership.