Holy Infant
Besides the Infancy Gospels of Jesus, and the story of David and Goliath, I’d found another child myth of a Biblical character in the Dead Sea Scrolls, being of Noah. All of these child myths serve, in some form, to foreshadow the actions of these heroes as adults. I was interested in this as well as in the child archetype of Jungian psychology, in which the child often possesses more divine knowledge than common sense, and exists androgynous, yet outside of gender roles.The pure white figure here is derived from the description of Noah in the Scrolls. The boat refers to the apocryphal story of Noah, and the giant skull with a rock in it is from David and Goliath. The sky is divided into the seven heavens, or the seven planets known to the ancients. Agreeable with the Jungian archetype, the presence of the seven heavens relates to the child's divine nature and understanding.
This, along with the previous painting, "the Transfiguration," was done for a "white show." When I thought that the previous one was too big, and would influence the decision of the dealer to include it, I did this smaller painting. It still didn't get in either. Neither were white enough to satisfy the dealer.