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Sophia Pistis



32" X 44"

1995

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Notes on Sophia Pistis

When I started this painting I thought that I was painting a Gnostic "symbolic" or "mystery" painting. And maybe I did, but from the moment that I had finished it I recognized this painting was also an "anima" painting. The anima is a Jungian term for the feminine aspect found in all men, as the "animus" is the masculine aspect found in all women. From an archetypal view this painting encompasses many of the femine archetypes: the Great Mother, the fertile mother, the chthonic feminine in the guise of Medusa, an avenging feminine (tiger), the pure feminine (swan) and a female puer aeternus or Kore (the maiden or young lady).

From the Gnostic point of view "Sophia (wisdom) which is called Pistis (faith) wished to create a work alone, without her consort. And her work became an image of heaven so that a veil exists between the heavenly and lower realms (aeons). And a shadow came into being beneath the veil, and that shadow became Matter and it was projected apart"

Nag Hammadi Codices II; 4.94
Kurt Rudolph,   Gnosis  1977