Daniel Botkin's Motorcycle Black Madonna and the Gates of Eden

I have no recollection of hearing anything about the Black Madonna before its reference in Bob Dylan's Gate of Eden in the mid-1960s. Because of its prominent position on one of his most heralded albums, Bringing It All Back Home -- in the seriously great sequence of Mr. Tambourine Man // Gates of Eden // It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) // It's All Over Now, Baby Blue -- it has received mucho much play time over the past many decades. 

So it was quite the surprise to have the Black Madonna appear in the film War & Peace, based on Tolstoy's classic of the same name. (EdNote: My relationship to War & Peace is similar to Zelig's relationship to Moby Dick in the Woody Allen classic.)

According to scholar Marcus C. Levitt one of the key features of Napoleon and Napoleonism is the power of image. Supposedly Napoleon is the original source for the famous saying "a picture is worth 1000 words." Hence his willingness to have numerous portraits made of himself at key moments in his career, projecting a bigger than life mythology that gained for him a psychological advantage in battle.

Tolstoy explicitly invokes Napoleonic visual images and juxtaposes them with Russian icons including the famed Black Madonna. 

Some legends have it that the Black Madonna was painted on a piece of wood by none other than St. Luke the physician, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Historians cite a painting of the Black Madonna that stood in Czestochowa, Poland for six centuries which was profoundly revered. The icon, known as the Queen of Poland, is credited with leading a group of monks holding out against a Swedish siege in 1655. More recently, the madonna's image was never absent from Lech Walesa's lapel during the Solidarity leader's struggle against Poland's Communist regime.

In olden times it was not uncommon for armies to carry symbols like this into battle in the belief that "if God be for us, who can be against us?" Like amulets and lucky charms it was intended to put the intangibles in our favor, hence it appears in this manner in Tolstoy's epic.

How very strange, then, for the Black Madonna to make its appearance here in Bob Dylan's Gates of Eden:

The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden
 

The painting on this page is by Daniel Botkin. winner of the Dylan Days Art Competition in Hibbing. It was one of many impressive works that he shared at The Red Mug during Duluth Dylan Fest in 2015. When I asked for permission to share the painting he also supplied some commentary about the piece.

 

The full title is "Motorcycle Black Madonna With Grey Flannel Dwarf."

Of course the inspiration for this piece was from the lyrics, "The motorcycle black madonna, two wheeled gypsy queen, and her silver studded phantom cause the grey flannel dwarf to scream as he weeps to wicked birds of prey that pick up on his breadcrumb sins."

Like so many Dylan song lyrics, these words painted a picture in my mind, and this was one of those Dylan-inspired pictures I wanted to put on canvas.

I used a variety of materials to create it: cotton fabric, burlap, leather, wood dowel rods, rope for the motorcycle tires, doll eyes for the madonna, a glass eye and water buffalo teeth for the horse-headed phantom on the front fender, a crying doll head for the dwarf, and pieces of sponge for the breadcrumb sins.

Dylan's lyrics often have a surreal sense that produces concrete images while concealing or veiling deeper things. For example, the line from the following stanza  "While paupers change possessions, each one wishing for what the other has got" explicitly describes envy, one of Catholicism's Seven Deadly Sins.

This is immediately followed by "And the princess and the prince discuss what's real and what is not." Here we now stand in the midst of a whirl of ambiguity, because, "It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden."

You can read my 2015 interview with the artist here.

To see more of Botkin's art online, visit http://danielbotkin.com/

Poland's Black Madonna (1990 NYTimes story)

An Aesop Fable On Authenticity: The Monkey and the Camel

Photo by Vivek Sharma on Unsplash

Something I'd been reading recently triggered the recollection of the Aesop Fable, the Monkey and the Camel. The way I remembered it, the story took place near an oasis in the desert, hence the presence of the camel in this story. When I Googled it for this blog post, I found several versions of the story. This one here is told most efficiently, the way that I recall Aesop's tales usually being told.

This version comes from an unknown translator, copyright 1881, Wm. L. Allison, New York

The beasts of the forest gave a splendid entertainment, at which the Monkey stood up and danced. Having vastly delighted the assembly, he sat down amidst universal applause. The Camel, envious of the praises bestowed on the Monkey and desirous to divert to himself the favor of the guests, proposed to stand up in his turn, and dance for their amusement. He moved about in so very ridiculous a manner that the Beasts, in a fit of indignation, set upon him with clubs, and drove him out of the assembly. 

Moral: It is absurd to ape our betters.

The Library of Congress has a version which someone embellished, describing the Camel's knotty knees and other such details, which don't really strengthen the story in my opinion. In this versions the writer adds a sentence describing refreshments served afterwards, "mostly of camel's hump and ribs."

Yikes! As if it weren't enough simply bad enough to be shamed and laughed at. Making a fool of yourself can get you killed?

This InfoPlease version doesn't even include the moral of the story, an almost unforgivable oversight, since the pithy "moral of the story" endings are what make Aesop's Fables so delightful.

Photo by Andre Iv on Unsplash

The Monkey and the Camel
At a gathering of all the beasts the Monkey gave an exhibition of dancing and entertained the company vastly. There was great applause at the finish, which excited the envy of the Camel and made him desire to win the favour of the assembly by the same means. So he got up from his place and began dancing, but he cut such a ridiculous figure as he plunged about, and made such a grotesque exhibition of his ungainly person, that the beasts all fell upon him with ridicule and drove him away.

* * * *

I quickly found a couple versions identical to the first one above, but once again, this Heritage History variation adds embellishments. The first is the addition of the reason for this celebration, and then it says the Monkey was asked to dance.

At a great celebration in honor of King Lion, the Monkey was asked to dance for the company. His dancing was very clever indeed, and the animals were all highly pleased with his grace and lightness.


Now the way I remembered it, it was just another night at the oasis and when the music started playing the Monkey did what he loves to do, and does well. He danced.

Then the Camel gets into the spotlight, but this storyteller once again goes too far. The only detail he or she does correctly note is the Camel's motivation. He was consumed with envy.

The praise that was showered on the Monkey made the Camel envious. He was very sure that he could dance quite as well as the Monkey, if not better, so he pushed his way into the crowd that was gathered around the Monkey, and rising on his hind legs, began to dance. But the big hulking Camel made himself very ridiculous as he kicked out his knotty legs and twisted his long clumsy neck. Besides, the animals found it hard to keep their toes from under his heavy hoofs.

What's curious is this next detail. Instead of being laughed at and shamed, this version suggests that the camel got punished for something altogether different.

At last, when one of his huge feet came within an inch of King Lion's nose, the animals were so disgusted that they set upon the Camel in a rage and drove him out into the desert.

Shortly afterward, refreshments, consisting mostly of Camel's hump and ribs, were served to the company.

Do not try to ape your betters.

My vote is a thumbs down on this version, too. Aesop had it right, as did Hemingway centuries later. Less is more.

* * * *

The point of the story is lost when we go too far. Envy gets people in trouble. And trying to be something you're not makes it that much worse.

We all have different strengths. Through self-understanding we're better able to play to those strengths. Karen Horney, Freud's first female student, wrote extensively on neurosis, pointing out the psychological origin of our neuroses being due to a split between our real self and idealized self. In other words, when who we are is out of sync with who we think we are, we're going to have problems.

Our lack of awareness with regards to how we come across can result in our making fools of ourselves. I've done that. It's worse than embarrassing.

Hence, the Oracle at Delphi has this inscription above the door: Know Thyself.

Self understanding is fundamental to living authentically in a world half mad with projecting images of whom we're not. Be real, be true and you will be happier.