Wednesday, November 5, 2008

unfinished pages






Here's a couple of pages from a work in progress, Unicorn Hunt.  This is the only creature I plan to revisit in any form, but I wanted to do a little more with the unicorn.  Unicorns are so interesting because, at least in the west, they have been used to represent male power and sex, but also as a metaphor for Christ, and 

you see both of those in the classic Unicorn Series tapestries at the Cloisters in Inwood, NYC.  You have the seductive element and the purity/sacrifice element.

I just watched Ingmar Bergman's "Virgin Spring", and I found the Pagan element really compelling, this sort of barbaric sexuality, in contrast with the primitive Christian humaneness.  Have you ever seen Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left"?  I don't know if he did it on purpose, but it is almost exactly the same plot as "Virgin Spring", but the murderers are bloodthirsty 
rapist hippies.  
Anyhow, so I wanted to throw a Pagan view up against the Christian unicorn allegory.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, Wes Craven "appropriated" (i.e., stole) the plot from Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING (I tried to leave this comment a while back, but I guess I messed up somewhere along the line in posting it. I also made a joke about the real inspiration for THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, but it's too lame to type again)

Sansell said...

I loved it really, i'm writing something about unicorns too, in their true nature. Maybe i can translate it for you to read ,and you could give your honored opinion! I love the pages. Congratulations!